33 JfrienMp Cijat anti $latn 

daife about Jfflmb 

Eeabtng 




$rice 50 cent* 

Jtage 9. Cocfjran, $ubltsfier 
Caatx function, Vermont 



3 jfrtenMp Cfcat anil Pain 

®alfe about jWrnb 

Eeabtng 




iprice 50 cents 

$ase 3. Cocfjran, ^utiltstiet 

€sitx Junction, Vermont 



LIBRARY cf CONGRESS 
Two Gooies Received 

S£p 23 1907 
CopyngM Entry 

CLASS /» XXc. No 

copy a. 



3F mi 



Copyright 1905 

By 

Will U. Reezon 

(Page A. Cochran) 



CONTENTS. 

Honest with you, no promise of every wish gratified for a little 
money. 

2 

Friendship, its wonders in good or evil — affects everybody f.nd 
everything. 

3 
No guess work — Call it what you please. 



Plain Talk, its mission— Abused talent — Shrouded in mystery — 
Natural as breathing — Rabid opposers unwittingly acknowl- 
edge. 

5 

Holy Ghost people, Mr. C, my prayer answered at same time and 
under same conditions as his but he of God and I of the devil — 
"Try the spirits" — False prophets and spirits of devils doing 
miracles — "Depart from me" — Present miracles no evidence of 
godliness — Impressions. 

6 

Impressions — Confined to no one class — Saved from crime — Knew 
thoughts four miles away — Knew brother's thoughts 1,000 miles 
away — Religion nothing to do with it — Letters from hypnotists 
1 — My letter to a hypnotist. 

7 
Quotations from my reply to Ingersoll. 



Extracting thoughts by sensing magnetism — Clairvoyants — Part of 
man's brain — Nothing to be afraid of — Thought reading and in- 
fluence no evidence of connection with Deity. 



"Try the spirits," why? Spirits may be persons occupying natural 
bodies. 

10 

"Try the spirits," how? — World captivated by "spirit of error" — 
Holy Spirit not in present-day church — Why mediums get things 
wrong from the "departed" — Spirits work on mind during 
sleep. 

11 

Sympathetic thought transference — Every passion communicable — 
A remarkable and complicated case in the writer's experience — 
Understanding. 

12 
Bible true, tho little understood — Jesus' agony — Church fallen- 
Other experiences of the writer. 

13 
Humanity rises and falls regularly — Constant repetition — Solomon 
describes present conditions. 

14 
Quotations from my Psychologized by Satan, a lie is poison. 

15 
Blind people— Different spirit in two congregations— You are "con- 
trolled" any way— A druggist's experience— Another experience 
of the writer. 



16 

Beading human nature — Every passion shows in face — Plants sen- 
sitive to thought. 

17 
Fooling me — What you had for dinner — Suspicious of wrong — 
Scoffers — Telling which hand button is in. 

18 

Strength of thought force — Conditions necessary for thought com- 
munication — Man both spirit and material — Most communica- 
ting between the sexes —Confinement to mind reading not de- 
sirable, why?— Reading thought and seeing future not alto- 
gether satisfactory at present — The writer seeing both sides — 
Face all the batteries of hell — Faith — One more example — 
Committed suicide by thought influence, ring burned lady's 
finger — Bible statements — Temptation from without and within. 

19 
Thoughts have form; they materialize. 

20 

Moved by other's thoughts supposing the idea original — Knowing a 
desire to speak — Positive evidence — Waking by thought — Sym- 
pathetic sickness — St. Vitus' dance cured, boy insane by sym- 
pathetic influence — How came evil spirits in the Gadarene? 
— Praying intelligently — Brain dissolves — Quotation from 
Phrenology. 

21 

What part do we play on the "world's stage"? — Quotations from my 
Psychologized by Satan — Closing words. 



PRAY A LITTLE PRAYER FOR ME. 

You think 't'is foolish time to spare 
To 'ngage in thoughtful earnest prayer. 

But I would tell you, fickle man 
That neither saint nor sinner can 

Breathe th' breath of life and never pray. 
Then pray a little prayer for me. 

O, say a little prayer for me. 

And that will brighten life for thee. 
O man or woman, girl or boy; 

Or rich man, poor man, priest, ahoy! 
These invocations I desire 

Because I know the power of prayer. 

Tho you be saint in beauty rare, 

Or you be sinner in despair, 
Yet your desire sure is a prayer. 

Tho it be but a friendly thought, 
Or wish and desire meanly wrought — 

Wishes and desires all are prayers. 

O girl so little, boy so small, 

And men and women one and all; 

Of pious turn, or scoffing lore, 
Ev'ry day pray'r is at thy door. 

Be not unwise and try to spurn 

These wondrous truths that in thee burn. 

Yes think a happy thought for me, 
And prove 't will brighten life for thee. 

Your prayer will go across the sea. 
No valley's breadth nor mountain's height 

Can keep the prayer from going where 
Our wishes and desires are sent. 

The infant prays, tho never speaks. 
The poor man prays, and often seeks 



To do the good neglected by 

The rich man and his lustful eye; 

And reaps rewards unfathomed by 
His riches, pearls or "yellow dye." 

The herb, the flower, the towering tree, 

All pray as earnestly as we. 
The goat, the lamb, the birdies small, 

Are full of prayer, and joy and song. 
Reptiles even, fishes in the sea, 

Have their desires, and pray, like we. 

O how one little moment's thought 
Has miracles and wonders wrought! 

Whatever duties we perform 

In the sunshine or in the storm, 

Prayer's luscious fruit is doubly sweet, 
If we have hearts the right to greet. 

Why, every longing of your soul, 
Is earnest prayer to reach the goal 

Of your desires, good or evil. 

And prayer is answered on our level. 

We cannot escape, do's we will, 
Good prayer or mean, '11 cling to us still. 

O little boy upon the street! 

O little girl so trim and neat! 
O everybody, everywhere 

Please for me say a kindly prayer. 
O say a little prayer for me, 

And that will brighten life for thee. 

O think a kindly prayer for me 
And prove 't will brighten life for thee. 

O man or woman, girl or boy, 

Or rich man, poor man, priest ahoy! 

Your invocations I desire 

Because I know of lovely prayer. 



A FRIENDLY CHAT AND PLAIN TALK ABOUT MIND 
READING. 

i. 

Don't get beside yourself. 

Unlike extensive advertisers of these topics I am going to 
get your attention because I deserve it and by being honest, or 
not at all. 

I am not going to swell and daze your eager being with 
promises of glittering Utopias of gratified desires. I am not 
going to promise that for a sum of money I will impart to you 
some strange, wonderful, mysterious power, and lead to what is 
today called success, and give you the power to hypnotize 
everybody you see ; make everybody love you ; cure everybody 
of all disease; with a mere thought bend everybody to your 
liking without their knowing it ; read everybody's mind at will ; 
attract to yourself riches and fame, and force the fulfilment of 
every carnal and selfish wish. Such are the unfulfilled promises 
that advertisers have made you. 

Mind reading (thought communication) is a reality; I 
want to give you a plain, honest talk about it. 



If so disposed (and possessing the ability) we could select 
either one of two words (mind or friendship) from our subject, 
and follow it through its various fields of thought and go on 
writing (under the present modes of writing and expressing 
thought) until the earth itself could not contain the books. I 
will not engage for the task. 



10 

Your kind attention is solicited to briefly consider the word 
Friendship. 

Friendship ! Ah, Friendship ! What a word art thou ! 
Who can analyze thee? Who can determine thy prestige? 
Could we extract thy prestige from all conduct and from all 
things, to us would be dedicated the key of knowledge, to us 
would unfold all mysteries. She is felt by the creeping things 
of earth, the floating things above the earth, and the swimming 
things in the waters ; by everything in heaven above and in the 
earth beneath. She makes herself known to the good and bad 
alike, she moves both angels and devils, she reaches as high as 
heaven and deep as hell. Her blessings are manifold, her 
curses no less. Her phases and qualities are as many and 
varied as are all the influences, conditions, positions, creatures, 
things, elements and articles that make up the sum-total of the 
universe. A feeling of friendship may kindle friendship (with- 
out speaking or seeing) in saint or sinner. This is a great lever 
used in influencing others — right or wrong. We may be strong 
enough morally to partially negatize ourselves against the sort 
of spirit we do not wish to be contaminated by; on the other 
hand we may be strong enough immorally to partially negatize 
ourselves against receiving a decent sort of spirit. 

The friendship existing between two snails and that which 
exists between two ordinary human beings differs in some ways. 
The friendship that exists between a cow and a sheep must differ 
in some way from that which exists between two cows or two 
sheep. The friendship between masculinity and femininity 
you know is somewhat different from that between two mascu- 
lines or two feminines. The friendship between a gang of 
robbers and a company of reformers must be somewhat differ- 



11 

ent. The friendship between righteous forces and evil forces 
are of two different orders. You can scarcely refrain from 
loving a friend, or one who loves you. The friendship that 
soars above all and loves male and female, friend and foe, is a 
comfortable state of mind that but few possess. Such was the 
state of the Grand Man who said "Love your enemies, * * for 
if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not 
even the publicans the same ?" i 

"And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than 
others ? Do not even the publicans so?" 

A friend said to me in a letter, "I used to think that friend- 
ship meant happiness, but I am learning that it means disci- 
pline." And so it does in many cases. The discipline which I 
wisely allowed myself to receive from that friendship I would 
not exchange for a thousand gold mines. 

My object in choosing the phrase Friendly Chat, which 
occurs in our title is that I so fully realize that mind reading is 
a very delicate subject to treat and must be handled with ex- 
treme care ; and that in order to get the attention of the multi- 
tudes, their friendship or patronage must be obtained by serpen- 
tinely taking advantage of the public's sensitiveness to the in- 
fluences of fakes, mountebanks and pretenders, or their confi- 
dence moist be inspired in my ability to agreeably and inspiring- 
ly treat the subject. That is to say I chose the title, A Friendly 
Chat and Plain Talk Alout Mind Reading, because I so realized 
the danger of irritating people if we say anything about know- 
ing another's thoughts, and particularly if we say anything 
about knowing their own thoughts ; so to level down these 
Niagara and Rocky Mountain difficulties I bethought me for a 
title which would serve as a forerunner and peacemaker and 



12 

thus accomplish a seemingly miraculous feat, that had before 
seemed like an impossibility. And this, thought I, must be 
done by finding words for a title which will stimulate friend- 
ship, inspire confidence, and meet with a sufficient degree of 
interest and approval, thus making me the happy recipient of 
your friendship and confidence. 

The noted Herr Von Goethe, writing on the "Eloquence 
That Persuades" said: 

"Persuasion, friend, comes not by wit or art, 
Hard study never made the matter clearer, 
Tis the live fountain in the speaker's heart 
Sends forth the streams that melt the ravished hearer. 
Then work away for life, heap book on book, 
Line upon line, and precept on example — 
The stupid multitude may gape and look, 
And fools may think your stock of wisdom ample, 
But would you touch the heart, the only method known, 
My worthy friend, is first to have one of your own." 

3- 

What I am to say about mind reading is not what I have 
read from books, nor simply what others have told me ; conse- 
quently it is not from guess work, but from an actual knowl- 
edge, by having lived and learned — learned as positively and 
evidently as I have learned to read and write, or as I have 
learned mathematics or the English grammar. But by reading 
I find that some others are learning also. 

You may call it mind reading, mental telegraphy, mental 
communication, thought transference or whatever may please 
you. Or you need not call it; you may deny its reality, never- 
theless those- who have been sensitive to my solicitations of 



13 

their interest and patronage I will do my best to make glad they 
ever heard of me. 

4- 

By Plain Talk I do not mean a pompous soaring o'er 
mountain heights of eloquence and oratory, making myself 
shine with all the conceited grandiloquence of a self-styled Seer 
or Prophet; but I mean a coming right down among you (as it 
were) for a frank, open, honest talk. (I am going to be honest 
and plain enough to say right now that I am: humble enough ; 
and hungry enough for knowledge and truth ; so that if anybody 
who may hear my voice knows more about the subject than I 
do, or can treat the subject better than I can, then I will gladly 
resign my position in their favor, while I sit at their feet and 
learn). 

The mission of this Plain Talk is in no sense an attempt to 
persuade coarse-grained bull dogs and vulgar self-conceited 
idiots ; but its mission is to come close to the hearts of many 
who are hungering and thirsting for knowledge ;- to help sensi- 
tize truth seekers to the truth ; to impart knowledge, expand the 
intellect and spiritual being, to instruct, edify, inspire, illumin- 
ate, and perform its little part in enlightening, and ultimately 
making happier the human race. 

You have probably perceived already, without being told, 
that I did not propose to preach a sermon particularly nor give 
you a spiritualistic seance; that it was not to horrify you by 
making you think you were sliding into an orthodox hell, not 
startle you with dancing tables, or intruding ghosts or spirits. 
(I will say, however, that none of those things would be start- 
ling or intruding to me — except the orthodox hell, which I deny 
and defy). 



14 

Mind reading has been, and is now, a much abused talent. 
Through every land, in every clime, shrewd, foxy and selfish 
leaders and money getters have enshrined the subject in 
mystery. 

Xot only throughout Pagan communities, but in Chris- 
tendom and civilization, the masses have been superstitious, 
foolish and ignorant; tho we have called ourselves bright 
people, enlightened, civilized and Christianized. They have 
looked upon the subject in wonderment and bewilderment, 
with horrified feelings of awe and peculiar fear ; and shudder- 
ing, crawling, creeping sensations. 

Our parents have been shrouded in such dense blackness 
and ignorance (tho thinking themselves civilized and enlight- 
ened) that it came natural to think of those who were specially 
gifted in mind reading as strange, superior and wonderful 
beings, different from the rest of us, a select few with special 
favors and gifts from above, with a special, private connection 
with the office of the gods ; or else to consider them horrible 
monsters, polarities of hell, incomprehensible creatures in 
communication with his Satanic Majesty, and things not to be 
patronized or tolerated, but to be shunned with all the terror 
that they would shun the hissing reptile. 

Nonsense, it is time to cast off such habiliments of filthy 
rags, such superstitious, dread suspicions and shameful ignor- 
ance. 

To be true to the promise of a Plain Talk it must be clearly 
slated that mind reading is not a special gift to a select few. It 
is as universal as the human race, and as all living things. It 
i- as natural as breathing. 



15 

Some may have come here to scoff; some came out of 
curiosity, some came hoping to go away wiser than they came. 
But ignorance, opposition, resentment and resistance does not 
destroy a single fact (they may hide the fact from the posses- 
sor) . It matters not what you believe, who you are, what your 
business or where you "hail from," to receive thoughts from the 
minds of other people is as natural as for water to run down 
hill ; and you cannot live and not do it, any more than you can 
live without breathing. 

But some would retort : "I guess if we received thoughts 
from other minds we'd know it without your telling us of it." 

Perhaps so ; perhaps not so. Some people once in a while 
recognize the source from whence comes a thought, or thoughts, 
that occur to them. Some people often recognize the source. 
Some people never recognize it. But every person receives 
thoughts from other minds whether they ever recognize it or 
not. 

l Now some people think they don't know anything when the 
fact is they know much more than they realize. Some others 
think they are very wise, when the fact is nobody would give a 
postage stamp for their great stock of knowledge. 

An old Arabic saying divided men into four classes : Those 
who know and know that they know, those who know and 
don't know that they know; those who don't know and know 
they don't know, and those who don't know and don't know 
that they don't know. 

Persons of the most rabid opposition to the idea of mind 
reading unwittingly acknowledge its reality, either thought- 
lessly or because they are so destitute of reason that they know 
not what they do. They (the same as other people) have many 



16 

times when in conversation and thinking of John or Lucy and 
intending to speak their name said George or Mary ; and have 
made the remark : "I guess they are thinking about me." 

How did the lips speak the name of somebody of whom the 
mind was not thinking? You were (perhaps unconsciously) 
partially under control of the one whose name you kept speak- 
ing when you did not intend to ; or conditions might have been 
such that you were more or less under control of somebody 
else who was thinking of you and the one whose name you 
spoke, and thus caused you to speak the name of one of whom 
you did not think. Those same opposers may say : "I've 
been thinking of so-and-so all day; I guess they are going to 
come, or I'm going to hear from them." 

What made you think of them thus ? 

More than 999 chances to a thousand you were under 
impressions from the minds of those people. 

Who has not many times had some person come suddenly 
to mind when not led to think of that person by any train of 
thought that their own mind was following, but apparently 
without a cause^ when all at once that very person or persons 
as suddenly put in an appearance ? 

5- 

During my life I have associated a good deal with one of 
those loud, up-and-up rabid opposers of the idea of mind read- 
ing ; we will call him Mr. C. He has become a so-called pente- 
al churchman. He claims to sanctification, holiness, special 
connection with Deity, a performer of miracles, etc. 

With his own lips did he tell me of being one time 30 or 40 
miles from home, when he did not want to go home just then 



17 

and did not intend to, until impressions to the effect that he 
should go home, affected him so that he did go. He stopped at 
the post office of his home town and got the mail ahead of his 
wife. I will not tell it all ; but his impressions, received many 
miles away from home, were well taken care of. 

Would he have received those impressions if the thoughts 
of his wife, or of some other party, had not been directed 
towards him? 

No. 

In professing to have been specially inspired of God to 
go home that night he is one of two things : an ignoramus or 
a lying hypocrite, or both. 

Some years ago a friend came one day to the house, 
where I was stopping; we will call him Mr. B. It so hap- 
pened that Mr. C was there (he had tried to get me to go onto 
the road with him to deliver an illustrated lecture, or lectures), 
Mr. B kindly informed me that a position where he was 
might soon be vacated and that it might be an opportunity 
worthy of my notice. I was going right home with him. 

Mr. C said : "Go home with me tomorrow, I'm going to 
Mr. B's place the next day, you can go with me." : ). 

I waited and went home with Mr. C. I received a card 
at C's office, from the owner of the establishment where B was, 
saying that the other fellow had partly decided to stay, but if 
there were further developments they would inform me. Mr. 
C hustled up there. 

Now mind this: When he got there and was talking 

with them he was at least 12 or 14 miles away from me. But 

I knew that he was working deceitfully, and as he thought, 

blindly. I knew he was saying what I did not wish him to, and 
2 



18 

conveying false impressions, to prevent my getting the position 
so I would go onto the road with him. I packed my grip and 
got aboard the first train that was going my way. Mrs. C was 
puzzled, but I knew what I was doing. A few days after 
that, Mr. C was at my youngest sister's. He told them he 
was never so surprised in his life as when he got home and 
found that I had gone. But sure enough, the bird which he 
thought he had trapped had flown. 

I let the matter rest quietly and awaited an opportunity, 
which after a time presented itself. Air. B called to see me 
about some other matter. When he started for home I stepped 
out onto the veranda with him. I said nothing of the affair, 
but of his own accord he asked me if I was going out with Air. 
C. 

I told him No. 

Then he told me confidentially what Mr. C said to them 
that day. It corresponded with the impressions I received 
and with what I knew he was saying right when they were 
talking. Several years after, I received such a letter from C 
that I told him (in a letter) all about it. He covered a little 
more than six good sized pages telling about what the Holy 
Ghost and Holy Spirit told him to say to me, and what he 
told him to do, and pleading with me to come under his (Mr. 
C's) management, because the Holy Spirit told him to tell 
me to put behind me false prophets and put away the "opposi- 
tion spirit" that ruled me and enter a project under him (Mr. 
C) that was to save the world. (I will state right here that 
the "opposition spirit" he refers to, he supposed 1 would nol 
be capable- of understanding. It merely meant niv persistent 



19 

refusal to put my money and myself under his control). I 
answered his letter at once. I began by saying : 

For 30 years I sat at the feet of Gamaliel, jostled on the 
knees, rustled in the bosom, suckled the paps, and fed on the 
virus of ignorance and fallacy furnished by my teachers, 
("blind guides") ; but thank God, in my determined search for 
the truth, I found the antodote, not a poison that counteracts 
the effects of another poison to tide me along for a little time, 
but THE BRIDGE THAT SPANS THE CHASM. 

Then I told him why I packed my grip that time and went 
home, and asked him if the Holy Spirit sent me his thoughts, 
and told him : No, that his spirit and the spirit of the other 
men there sent me the message. And when he was writing 
the letter spoken of I knew it and mentioned the fact that I 
knew how he was thinking of me when doing that writing 
and again penned the question : Did the Holy Spirit tell me? 
and also answering: No, your spirit told me. 

Knowing as I did of how he always raved and called 
everybody fools and idiots who affirmed the reality of mind 
reading and the power of mind over matter and of mind over 
mind, I knew how he would outwardly oppose my letter. 

He wrote again immediately (12 full pages), continuing 
the information of his directions by the Holy Ghost and how 
he was of the Holy One and I of the devil ; and so anxious to 
get me from under the devil's control ! On page 2 of his letter 
he said : "You do not use your God given power but let the 
devil get in his work on the mind reading question. Why, Oh ! 
why, can you not discard that thing? You have so many, 
many, many times been shown how false it is." 



20 

Then on page 10 of the same letter he denies his own 
statement which we have just quoted, and acknowledges that 
by his sending the letter that he was that moment writing, was 
simply giving me another outward proof that mind influence 
was true and not false, and that his outward oppositions and 
ravings against it were lying hypocrisy and blasphemy, and evi- 
dence, for one who can see, that he was either, consciously or 
unconsciously, hypnotized by the spirit of Satan, and wanted a 
monopoly of that important talent, or feature, with which 
nature endows every human being, and the lower order of 
beings as well. Here is what he said : 

"When you say you knew I was thinking about you the 
other day I do not doubt it, but* your mind was drawn towards 
me because I asked the Holy Spirit to work on your heart and 
likely when He came vou discarded Him as quick as you 
could ;" thus he went on. He said of that letter "This letter 
is directed of God." 

So you see his "Holy Spirit," his God nor he himself (Mr. 
C) did not possess the sense to see that he was acknowledging 
tlx- reality of thought influence, or else his God did not have 
the decency to "direct this letter" without the silly contradic- 
tions which it contained. See the discord between the two 
statements: "Many times been shown how false it is" but 
"when you say you knew I was thinking about you the other 
■lav I do not doubt it." 



•He saM just what I knew he would and just what I want for 
this lecture. He wrote in red letters at the top of a page "keep this 
letter, it will mean something to you some day." 1 was glad that 

aid it hut it was needless. I had saved the two before it, and 
-till have the three in safe keeping. 



21 

For argument's sake let us allow that what Mr. C further 
states is true, and that I knew when he was thinking of me 
because the Holy Spirit gave me the information. 

Would that do away with my having known his thoughts ? 
Does it militate against thought communication ? Allowing the 
Holy Spirit to be the medium by which, our thoughts were com- 
municated, and by which people so often know other's thoughts 
and feelings, and thus communicate their thoughts as really 
and as consciously as tho they were side by side talking (or 
even if it is done unconsciously on the part of either, or both) 
does the Holy Spirit's serving as medium make it any the less 
real? 

Emphatically No, but according to C's profession it would 
make it more real, clearer, better understood, more to be desired, 
free from danger, and a conscious knowledge of which all 
should acquire. 

By my manifesting the "opposition spirit" that he speaks 
of, was I opposing the Holy Spirit or was I opposing the spirit 
of that man himself, who would like a monopoly of the powers 
of thought influence to gratify his own selfish nature, making 
the people think him a great man of God ? If I had answered 
the letter, making a great confession and telling him he was a 
great teacher and wonderful man of God and that people ought 
to flock to him for information and guidance, and that I was 
going to do my best to turn the multitudes under his manage- 
ment, how quickly he would have pronounced me a saint. But 
had I done it I would have wilfully made of myself a deceiver 
and blasphemer. 

Or is it reasonable to suppose that God by his spirit was 
sending information to that man and performing miracles for 



22 

him and dictating his letters to me, telling me how to come 
under his management to save the world (myself included) and 
that same Holy Ghost not sensible enough nor respectable, 
after informing me of how Mr. C was thinking about me, to 
tell me that I should go, and assist me to go, and put myself 
under his (Mr. C's) management, when I was then as ever 
earnestly praying to be guided aright ? 

The first lines of one of C's letters said : "Just now the 
Holy Spirit said to me, 'You address a special request to P — ;' 
I said, 'What for? he will not do anything only resent.' He 
said, 'That is just why I want you should address him ;' " thus 
he ran on. 

Under the light of a little knowledge and in the name of 
reason and honesty we can boldly answer : All there was to 
it he received the impression from my mind that he no need to 
write for the purpose which I knew he was thinking of writing. 
So you see that the spirit which informed him that I would 
refuse was really my own spirit, for according to his own 
statement he received a distinct impression of my thoughts. 

Prayer is desire. ;Desire is prayer. "Thought travels in 
the direction of desire." My desire (prayer) was that Mr. C 
fully understand that it was foolish to write to me for the 
purpose he had in mind ; and according to his confession in 
the letter he received the impression according to my prayer; 
so according to that, we were both giving and receiving a 
mental communication, and my prayer was answered just as 
truly and literally as his was, at the same moment and under 
the same conditions; yet he pronounced himself a Holy One 
of God and me — poor me, a poor deluded one of the devil. 



23 

This Mr. C is what is called a religious person. He was 
then attending "holiness" meetings of one B. S. Taylor. He 
professes to do miracles like having God hold off rain, cure 
sickness, influence people for him, tell him people's thoughts 
and guide him generally. 

During the summer of 1905 he held off rain two or three 
days in succession for another man to finish haying; but mind 
you it was for purely individual and selfish purposes — he 
wanted the other man to finish haying so to go and do his hay- 
ing: That was not the worst of it, he knew it was not going 
to rain, but he' kept making them think he was afraid of rain 
and so kept them busy early and late. 

And he is enough deluded to believe himself in connection 
with the throne of Deity, or else he has the conceit and incon- 
gruity to undertake to make me think that God performs mir- 
acles for such a fox, hypocrite, blasphemer and reprobate as he 
clearly shows himself to be ; and whether he is sincere, or wil- 
fully hypocritical, matters not, the disease is epidemic, conta- 
gious and dangerous — not always in just this phase, however. 

It is not for me to deny these miraculous things. I do 
them all myself, and do not hesitate to say that I have gone 
much further than Mr. C. 

I have known when it was not going to rain, when those 
about me supposed as much as could be that it was (except for 
the confidence they had in what I said) the clouds about were 
black and thunder was roaring. I do not say that my pray- 
ing (with others) held it from drenching the territory where 
we were anxious that it should be stayed for a time ; I do not 
say that it didn't, (it rained only a little way from, us). I have 
also known when it was going to rain before a given time : I 



did not pray, it "came to me". It does not follow that we could 
always know, tho I do not say that such a time will not come — 
/ say it will. 

I think Mr. C did know that it was not going to rain at 
those times, but I do affirm without reserve (but with mercy) 
that teaching that God and the Holy Spirit answers the prayers 
of a lying hypocrite who could deceive those men to keep them 
hurrying at their hay, by making them think he feared rain 
when he knew it was not going to rain, is to send forth stench- 
ing fumes from the pit, it is the height of blasphemy and devil- 
ishness, tho — must I say it? I know such a doctrine is sweet 
to this fallaciously hypnotized world. "Civilization" of this 
age would like to believe that the Holy Spirit is given it to 
consume upon its lusts ; nothing can serve Satan's purpose 
better. 

It seemed to make Mr. C feel envy and contempt to hear 
me tell of mental feats the same as he did. I told about burning 
my wrist from a boiling tea kettle, but putting nothing onto it 
and not being troubled with a sore. He laughed and sneered 
(another "Christian" by his side also laughed at it). But if 
anybody denies his "Holy Ghost" power of miracle working he 
pronounces them of the devil. 

I lay no claims to Divinity or connection with the Holy 
Ghost. There are no divine mind readers, divine healers, 
divine miracle workers in the world today. Not a Holy Alan 
of God in the world speaking "moved by the Holy Ghost." 
There used to be. There will be again. But there is not a 
Holy Man today. The original type of Christianity is not in 
existence now. The world is in a stage of transition: The 
good seed was sewn, and the Old Order, the old world (age) 



25 

is in its last stages of corruption. Soon we will transit,, pass 
out of the Old Order (age, or world) of corruption and fallacy 
into the New Order (age, or world) of purity, truth and knowl- 
edge ; in other words, the New Fruit will spring forth. 



"Can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?" 

Don't you know that they can and that they do so closely 
imitate the Divine wonders that only a few in these times are 
capable of detecting the difference ? 

The world is now passing through the day of judgment. 
We are in the "last days." We are witnessing the fulfilment 
of the declaration that false prophets and spirits of devils should 
work miracles and deceive nearly all the people. Many -have 
got an inkling of a knowledge of the powers of the mind and 
have been and are doing "wonders" in the name of the Divine 
One, when there is nothing holy or divine in them or their life 
or their works, when they do not possess the Christ spirit but on 
the contrary are filled with selfishness and lust and falsehood : 
and these are the reprobates to whom Christ referred in his 
sermon on the mount : 

"Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we 
not prophesied in Thy name? and in thy name have cast out 
devils ? and in Thy name have done many wonderful works ? 

"And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you ; 
depart from me ye that work iniquity." 

If I made such pretentions as some I would be the same 
kind of a hypocrite and reprobate. 1T0 claim a connection with 
the Holy Spirit or to be false with what knowledge and strength 
I possess would be to deliberately place myself in a position to 
hear the Holy One say : "Depart from me, I never knew you." 



26 

Should I not give God the glory ? 

I certainly should; I certainly do. 

I have used Mr. C's case only for an illustration. He 
wanted to control me without my knowing it. He would like 
in appearance to refute that statement by saying that he wrote 
in so many words that I must come under his management. 
Yes, but he gave me to understand that the Holy Spirit was 
his guide, which was supposed to give me a feeling of safety. 
Could not he be somewhat sincere? Possibly, I would much 
prefer to think so. But ignorance cannot make the truth out of 
falsehood. 

Those are the exact tactics of the devil with those whom he 
works to his best advantage. His very best hold is to make 
people think they are controlled by some spirit other than 
his own. 

But God don't do business that way. Good forces not 
only wish to rule us, but they wish us to know that we are being 
ruled by them. 

A few years later I was at my sister's. This Mr. C came 
also. I was taken with sick headache (I had a similar spell 
about ten days before). Mr. C went to York State to 
attend B. S. Taylor's camp meeting. He wrote to me. I 
quote his letter : 

"Mooers, N. Y., Aug. 4, 1906. 

Dear Brother : 

i have well known that you are being misled, trusting 
to your head and not having the direct power of God to lead. 
I must keep my vow to God; T dare not leave it unkept. One 
week ago last night I had a conviction of prayer for you, and I 
had a greal time. I asked God to put sickness on you if there 



27 

was no other way to make you understand that you were being- 
led astray. I promised God I would tell you why your health 
was taken and sickness brought on. When I was in your 
room that night I started to keep my vow, but the devil said r 
he will only scoff at it.* I was actually doing hard labor in 
my mind, the sweat pouring from my body. I finally com- 
menced to ask God to remove your sickness so you would go 
to sleep, and asked him that you might sleep during the night 
so not to disturb your mother (my mother was taken sick that 
same day and had not spoken for several hours). I went down 
stairs. Oh, I wish you could know the sickness that came onto 
me. I knew God was laying hold of me. I continued to grow 
worse and finally promised God I would tell you in the morn- 
ing, if he would remove my sickness. I commenced to burn 
up with fever and grew worse and worse and worse. I vowed to 
God that if he would remove from me the disease then and there 
so I would be able to come to this camp meeting that I would 
send you this letter, and, the vow I made I would not break any 
more than I would cut my tongue out. One thing more. To 
commence with, I said : If is being led in a way 



*Notice he is in direct communication with the devil here. Be- 
fore, it was the Holy Spirit that told him I would resent, but now 
the devil tells him the same thing, and he obeyed the devil. Up 
to this time he had constantly said that he was done with the 
devil, that he had, nothing to do with him; but since I answered 
this letter he has never mentioned the devil telling him what to 
do or what not to do, and his obeying him. The fact is, this time 
as before, it was a mental communication between us. I knew 
when he thought to speak to me, and thought: You'd better save 
your powder, you might just as well keep quiet. And he did. My 
prayer overcame his, tho he claimed himself of God and me of the 
devil. I also knew when he decided not to speak to me on the sub- 
ject and, to pray for me to go to sleep. I was agreed with him in 
that prayer and I dropped off to sleep at once. 



28 

that will land him in hell lay the afflictions on him. Now then, 
God did what I asked exactly, you know it, and I have cleared 
myself, but I shall continue to strike at the devil and ask God 
to bring you out of it through tribulations. This is all because 
I know God cannot be changed, neither can his law. In the 
love of God. Your Brother " 

I will quote my reply : 

Essex Junction, Vt, Aug. 10, 1906. 



Dear : 

Your letter from Mooers, New York, came duly to hand. 
I had no thought that I should spend time so prodigally (as I 
thought then) as to reply to such a deliberate superstitious 
blasphemer as you persist in making yourself regardless of any 
reasoning that it is possible to do. You make some reference 
to my trusting to my head. I cannot express my gratefulness 
to Him "who created and upholds the universe'' for a head 
capable of detecting between the spirit of the devil and the 
spirit of God. In this sickness of mine I had nothing to com- 
plain of. I came to just what I knew for many weeks I would 
if I did not hold up in my intemperance in several ways (eating, 
over-study, etc.) and my only surprise was that I kept well as 
long as I did. I had warnings enough. Now look at what I 
have in your own handwriting: You claim that God and the 
devil control people at the same time — I say it is blasphemy. 
Vnu claim that God answers prayer of people when they are 
knowingly obeying the devil and trampling under their feet the 
commands of God to them — I say it is blasphemy. Your letter 
states that God answered your prayer when you were knowingly 
under command and control of the devil. God wanted 
you to do one tiling (speak to me), SO you statx; the devil told 






29 



you not to and you obeyed the devil and went right on praying 
and then claiming that God answered your prayer when, ac- 
cording to your own statement you were under the direct control 
of the devil. It is naught but a display of gross and consum- 
mate ignorance, superstition and blasphemy ; "and may God 
have mercy on your soul." The time was when I was under 
similar torments as you are but thank God that time has gone (I 
have risen above it) and no man nor set of men can ever bring 
me back to such a state. I have nothing to fear in this uni- 
verse of God's. When God is through with me "in the body" 
I am ready to depart ; and no sickness, no power of the devil 
or of men, no money or honors of the world, can ever turn me 
to a confession of the fallacy, superstition and blasphemy that 
you and modern "civilization" manifest. If conversion to 
such, or death, was to be forced upon me this moment, I would 
gladly lie down and die rather than break away from God's 
truths, rather than return to the ignorant state, secularly and 
religiously, that I used to be in. 

If you had asked me whether I would sleep that night I 
could have told you. You prayed ? Do you think nobody else 
prayed? But what an insult it would be to you to think that 
anybody's else praying had anything to do with it. Bah ! You 
prayed for the other person you mention? Do you think no- 
body else prayed for her? But what an insult it would be to 
you to say that anybody had anything to do with it but your 
"power with God." Bah ! I have prayed for you many times 
when your own praying seemed to amount to nothing and there 
then would be "something doing ;" but I'm of the devil and you 
of God. I repeat : I am sorry for you. 



30 

Devils pray and their prayers are answered as often as 
anybody's. Even those devils that had so far retrogressed as 
to be ready to enter the animal kingdom prayed to Jesus (for 
power to go higher? No, to go lower, into the swine) and 
their prayer was answered. The Bible says : "Try the spirits" 
but modern Christians, one and all are in dense black ignorance. 
People who say that they love God and yet are opposed to being 
divorced from the love of money which is the root of all evil 
(from the competitive system, which is pagan and devilish) are 
liars and hypocrites and instead of "striking at the devil" are 
striking for him with every blow they wield. But like Elijah 
of old, I will ever scoff at the prophets of Baal. 

You have never yet had revelations that exceeded my 
own ; you have never yet had prayer answered more distinctly 
and miraculously than I have and do ; and you scoff in envy 
and jealousy when certain ones manifest more power than 
yourself, and call yourself of God and them of the devil. 
When I went into mother's room the other day after she was 
taken sick you told me that she could not speak. 
Little fear did I have. The first time I spoke to her she 
answered me distinctly and talked ever after. Prayer is 
answered on the level of the individual. Different forces 
answer prayer also, which is well known when one can "try 
the spirits" and "know the spirit of error from the spirit of 
truth." I might write hundreds of pages but you could 
not comprehend the truth because you don't want to. 
Yours for humanity, 

WILL U. REEZON. 

There never was a time in the history of the world when 
there were as many false prophets as now. ff you will allow 



31 

the expression : The woods are full of them. They are 
polarities of hell. Through them his Satanic Majesty has 
got the world hypnotized.* False prophets are all about you 
wherever you go — perhaps you are one of them — Papers and 
magazines unceasingly advertise them. Their literature floods 
the United States' mail. For several years past wherever 
was a company able to read and write, their shot and shell 
has been hurled thick and fast. 

Now dear friends don't be deluded into the notion that 
there is any evidence of a person being saintly or holy be- 
cause they perform some of these intellectual and mental 
feats. Evil spirits as well as good, bad people the same as 
good, work upon your mind by the force of their silent 
thoughts to influence you to their liking — you may call it 
praying or what you please. AND I WANT TO IMPRESS 
UPON YOU A WONDERFUL TRUTH JUST NOW; 
NEVER DID WISER COUNCIL DROP FROM- THE PEN 
OF A WRITER THAN WHEN THE BELOVED DIS- 
CIPLE WROTE: 

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits 
whether they are of God." 

If you cultivate the upper spiritual nature, by obeying the 
"still small voice," as it were, you will more and more be able to 
detect one impression from another; your feelings will be an 
inward monitor, a guide. The better we serve the guide the 
better it is able to serve us. Outward influences are brought 
to bear upon you by use of tongue or pen in connection with 
their silent thoughts trying to influence you to do this or that, 



I contemplate having a book printed on this subject. 



32 

but if that true index has not been so abused that there are 
no impressions upon your mind except from the nether regions 
and from evil spirits and minds and from your own selfish 
nature, so it does not respond, then it speaks clearly saying 
"This is the way, walk ye in it." "Go not that way, there is 
trouble for you if you do. Go this way and be guided in the 
paths of true knowledge, wisdom and success." 

6. 

Everybody receives many different impressions from 
many different sources, and every impression must be one of 
two things ; good, or bad ; worthy of our inception, or not 
worthy ; truth or falsehood ; of an upward tendency, or down- 
ward tendency ; from good people or bad people ; and every- 
body has to decided for himself what impressions he will give 
a hearing, tolerate and allow to become a vital part of himt- 
self. 

The truth about mind reading and thought influence is 
that it is not confined to any certain people or regions. It is 
done by high and low, rich and poor, good and bad. This 
subtle influence is no respecter of persons. If it were we 
could not influence each other. 



For instance, I have known at a distance from people 
when they were under temptation to commit crime. If ever 
I prayed, so to speak, I prayed then. If ever I impressed any- 
body by the silent power of "I will" I did it then. That party 
knew that they were being moved by my thoughts as posi- 
tively as I knew that I was receiving theirs. My silent ad- 
vice and help four miles away was accepted — the crime was 



33 

not committed — That is one case from thousands of times 
that I have consciously received others' thoughts. Many of 
these times I have received proof of. 

My youngest brother was on his way from Iowa to Ver- 
mont. He stopped off in Chicago for a little visit. One 
morning I received an impression that he was in trouble, that 
imminent danger lurked about him. I felt an anxiety for his 
safety. I prayed. I felt a replying voice ; "It will be all right, 
he will come safely home." When he arrived he had an ugly 
gash in his neck, near the jugular vein, the scar of which he 
still carries. In his sleeping room in Chicago the gas escaped. 
He awoke with a head ache and feeling a little queer, but know- 
ing nothing of his condition. Before he finished dressing he 
was unconscious of existence. When he came to himself 
he was sitting by the window, with his elbow resting upon the 
sill and his head resting upon his hand. He had fallen against 
the window, smashed it through, been through a seemingly 
dangerous performance, but saved his life by letting in the fresh 
air when he fell unconscious against the window. 



At that time I knew nothing of mental telegraphy and 
consequently did not know that I was a mind reader. I then 
attributed the phenomenon to my religion, being as I was and 
am of a very religious turn of mind, then supposing that none 
but the "elect" were favored with such wonderful manifesta- 
tions. 

But thank God I have lived and learned. A person's 
religion has nothing to do with, for or against, such a mani- 
festation. 



34 

I have been a party to those phenomena a hundred times 
since to once up to that time, but I do not profess the same 
religion; nay, I now declare that the church and Christianity 
of today is a counterfeit of the original — it is decadent. The 
"last days" are here. "All things must be made new." While 
the present church prays one really good thing it thinks a 
dozen mean, false, carnal and selfish things, with an interest 
that counteracts its own good praying twenty times over. 
That phenomenon was a mental communication pure and 
simple, between my brother and myself. I would not say that 
if I did not know that lying hypocrites, filled with carnality 
and selfishness, use that subtle influence for carnal and selfish 
purposes and that some of them communicate their thoughts 
to each other for like purposes, and in fact that evil thoughts 
and influences are communicated in like manner even more 
at the present time than good ones. 

If you had been kept awake a large part of the night last 
night knowing (or not knowing) that somebody was praying 
for you to take a certain step and you told of it this morning, 
to be answered by the party that was trying to get you to take 
that step ; ''Yes, I prayed for you thus ; so my prayer was 
answered?" Some of you would have thought that God was 
after you sure and that that party has wonderful power with 
God. 

The fact is, there would not be a particle of evidence in 
that that God had anything to do with it. But that party who 
was moving you like that might be as big a liar and as vile a 
scoundrel as ever looked into your face. 

I am not guessing. I am not theorizing. I am giving 
you a plain talk of what I know. 



35 

It is by these subtle, silent influences that political, re- 
ligious and other leaders can make others think that God and 
duty are commanding them to do the will of those leaders even 
tho the command is to steal, kill or commit adultery or forni- 
cation; and praise their worst enemies, and reject their would- 
be best friends, and work and vote for their own slavery, unable 
to tell "the spirit of error" from "the spirit of truth." 

I have been deluged with letters and circulars from all 
sorts of hypnotists. Few are the pennies they ever got from 
me. You must know a little of their lu'ring promises and 
claims, by reading their advertisements in the papers. You 
must be acquainted with their promises to impart to you (if 
you will pay their price) a power that will place you above 
others and give you unlimited influence and success as a 
salesman, lawyer, doctor, preacher, politician, lover, or any- 
thing and everything you see fit to turn your attention to. 

And certainly we need not read their circulars to know 
that it is not necessarily the honest or the virtuous, or the most 
intelligent people, in any avocation of life, that attract others 
the most, and influence them to their liking. 

But I cannot speak too forcibly in warning you, dear 
hearer, against occult forces, because those regions are full of 
darkness and fallacy. From those regions emanate influences 
that cause you to suffer and fight, to do wrong, to pay out 
money, and do a thousand things that you don't intend to — 
you do them, you know not why. 

The very meaning of the word (occult) which those 
people delight in using so much, bears me out in what I say. 
Occult means : hidden, secret, mystery, unknown. 



36 

Believe me, dear hearer, the time is close by when people 
dealing in dark, secret, hidden, mysterious and unknown goods, 
will not pass for scientists ; when, what now passes for medical 
profession, astronomy, political economists, theologians, and 
numerous so-called scientists, who acknowledge they don't 
know anything, will cease to pass for scientists. Science 
means knowledge, not mystery and ignorance. And true 
knowledge deals in light, not darkness and the unknown. 

We are at the door of a new world (new age) when in- 
tellectual illumination will obtain instead of stupidity and hallu- 
cination ; when the light will be separated from the darkness, 
and the evening (the last days of humanity to remain in ignor- 
ance, hypocrisy and darkness) and the morning will be the 
day, the Sabbath Day (age) when humanity will rest from its 
corruption, ignorance, selfishness and darkness (night) "for 
the former things are passed away." All conditions repeat 
themselves, periodically. 

The following is the gist of a letter that I wrote to a noted 
hypnotist : 

Aug. 17, 1899. 
Thomas Ad kins, 
Rochester, N. Y. } 
Dear Sir : — 

At your request I reply, to tell you something of my mind 
concerning your letter and advertising matter. 

I must acknowledge the reality of hypnotism. But why 
will not people be truthful? I have been forced to say: This 
world (as it is) has little use for an honest man. 

As to leaders in society, politics, business, etc., getting a 
following, I question sometimes, whether it is by their occult- 



37 



ism or a lack of practical commonsense (true knowledge), and 
a deplorable lack of real honesty in the duped and dominated 
ones. 

All occult teachers use for argument that everybody should 
have a knowledge of these things to protect themselves, to 
procure success, etc. But suppose everybody were to take 
your course in hypnotism, personal magnetism, etc., and have 
their influence increased in proportion as you claim. There 
would still remain the same difference in the power and in- 
fluence of every individual to every other individual, and some 
would go on in prosperity and others in failure. 

And I am foolish enough to believe that if I should lay 
aside frankness and take up deception and fraud, in other words, 
"the tricks of the trade," I could sooner obtain what is called 
success. 

Perhaps you will change your mind of me and think I am 
old fashioned when I tell you that I cling to the reality of 
the miracles and inspiration of the Bible, and to the gospel of 
Jesus Christ. 

No, I was not displeased with the matter you sent me. 
Glad you sent it. I want to know what is going on in the 
world — good, bad, or indifferent; but I question the advisa- 
bility of men making a business of giving such exhibitions. It 
is a waste of energy that might be utilized for the betterment 
of the race. 

This is a topic on which much can be said, and on which 
I expect to say more later. 

Very truly yours, 

WILL U. REEZON. 



38 

7-* 

He says to ministers "Use your senses," and "throw 
away all the ravings of the inspired;" but in the lecturef on 
page 78, he has very prominently brought out inspiration in his 
argument. He says : "Here is a woman whose husband has 
been lost at sea ; the news comes that he has been drowned by 
the ever hungry waves ; but she waits. There is something in 
her heart that tells her he is alive, and she waits." 

Do you see the proof of inspiration ? With perfect confi- 
dence she waits ; because — she receives a telegram or reads in 
the paper that he was saved? No. Because — somebody tells 
her ? No, for telegraphic news is often wrong, and newspapers 
often make mistakes, and town talk is so uncertain ; but in spite 
of all wrangling reports that may be in the wind she knows for 
herself and in a way that she does not guess at it nor take any- 
body's word for it, and she defies all contrary reports ; but how 
and why ? 

Because "There is something in her heart that tells her." 
And the inspiration proves correct for he says "Years afterward 
as she looks down toward the little gate she sees him; he has 
been given back by the sea." 

How intelligent, denies that he believes in inspiration and 
then uses argument that proves inspiration. 

You see it is just impossible for professed infidels to get 
along and not give themselves away — reveal their belief in the 
Bible and inspiration. Ingersoll says: 



♦Gleaned from different parts of my Ingersoll's Gospel 
analyzed. 

tlngersoll's lecture What Must We Do To Be Saved. 



39 

"Back of all honest creeds was, and is, a desire to know, to 
understand, and to explain, and that desire will, as I most fer- 
vently hope and earnestly believe, be gratified at last by the dis- 
covery of the truth," 'If Ingersoll in his mad career would 
stop and investigate his arguments he would be obliged to 
acknowledge that they reveal a belief in inspiration. Jesus 
Christ is The Truth, The Life and The Way, and it is impos- 
sible for one to believe Ingersoll's statement which we have 
just quoted without believing in inspiration. 

What was he arguing on ? 

Theology. 

That word, truth, then, has reference to the origin and 
destiny of man. From that word arises the questions : How 
did man originate and whither is he tending? Has man a 
soul and will he exist after this life ? and if so will his life here 
affect his existence in the world to come, and how ? Was Jesus 
Christ both man and God and if we are saved must it be 
through him? "The discovery of the truth" concerning these 
things is what Ingersoll has reference to in that statement, be- 
cause those were the things that he was discussing when he 
made the statement, and he says he earnestly believes that man 
will yet learn the facts of these important questions ; so taking 
him at his own word he is a firm believer in inspiration, be- 
cause the "truth" of which he speaks could never be made 
known to the world except through inspiration. 

How could his two contradictory accounts concerning the 
promise "If we forgive our fellow-men God will forgive us" 
be true? In his first account he says "I accept the terms;" 
in his other account he says "We do not need the forgiveness 
of God." And again further on he says, "I do not destroy the 



40 

promise that if you will forgive others God will forgive you;" 
but in less than a half a dozen pages from there comes the con- 
tradictory account destroying that promise, where he growls : 
"No forgiveness by the gods." 

Science tells us that our thoughts are living things ; and we 
know that all who are not, in angry passion or quiet simplicity, 
wading along in the cesspool of ignorance, know for them- 
selves, from observation and experience, that our thoughts are 
living things and that they travel the atmosphere, annihilating 
both space and substance, and often impress themselves upon 
the mind of somebody of whom we may be thinking. And just 
at this point comes to mind the proof of inspiration as taken 
from Ingersoll's argument in the lecture." 

Oh, somebody may say : That is only a case of telepathy, 
mind reading, her husband being alive she knew his thoughts, 
and felt an inward evidence that he was alive, but did not know 
that she was being impressed with thoughts emanating from her 
husband's mind, from a human magnet. Allowed, but that 
does not affect the argument as a scientific proof of inspiration. 
I suppose that our ability to influence other people by the 
quiet force of our mind depends a great deal upon the amount 
of those properties that have been named vitality and magnet- 
ism, which we possess, and also upon the sensitiveness of the 
person upon whom we put our mind. Now, to speak from a 
scientific standpoint, just as Mr. Ingersoll asks us to do: If 
man, only a midget of a magnet, without a look or a visible sign 
or a sound or a word, with his own thoughts can impress a fel- 
low-creature, it is but madness to say that the Living Omnip- 



*See first paragraph, part 7. 



41 

otent, Omniscient Magnet of the universe could not reveal His 
thoughts to one of His creatures at will ; and no man can study 
the prophetic records of the Bible without knowing that God 
revealed a great deal of his mind concerning this world to the 
Hebrew Prophets. 

'"Faith is a parasite whose poisonous vines must be up- 
rooted" says Ingersoll. Oh! But where is your science? 
Science tells us that there is that within man that makes him 
believe in the Deity and in the Divine power. And you may 
talk and speculate as you will, and try as hard as you may to 
make yourself and others think that you do not believe ; but you 
know that you do and that in spite of yourself. 

Thus do we see that it is impossible to investigate science, 
with honesty and reason, without finding that the miracles of 
the Bible are as easily performed as are the mysteries of science 
and, like them, are performed by perfectly natural means. 

Scientists have been at work endeavoring to extract from 
the walls of buildings the thoughts of men spoken within those 
buildings, the scientific fact being that our thoughts are 
living things possessing, in the technical terms of science, life 
and vitality and magnetism. 

Now, in the face of science and intelligence it would be 
unreasonable not to believe the Bible record that God keeps 
books and that a record is kept in which is registered the names 
of those who meet the conditions of eternal life. It is in keeping 
with science and with reason that a time of reckoning must 
come when the books will be opened. God does not do things 
by halves. 

Brother Ingersoll denies these Bible truths and tries to 
argue them away ; but bear with me while I repeat : he argues 



42 

them into existence. Let us see whether he believes these 
things. On page y^ of the lecture, where he exalts himself 
above accepting of the atonement of our Saviour he says, "I do 
not wish to go to heaven unless I can settle by the books." 

How can any honest, sane human being declare his faith in 
the awe-inspiring incidents of science and yet be so foolish as' 
to say with Ingersoll that "all the miracles of the Bible are the 
children of ignorance, cunning and mendacity?" If the Bible 
recorded incidents and miracles exactly like some that science 
relates, such men as Ingersoll would brand them with the 
ridiculous and the impossible. 



It would be foolish to imagine God, The spirit, with paper 
and pencil writing what we call a book. But consider that the 
so-called science of this age of ignorance and fallacy has been 
so far as to undertake to extract thought from walls of a build- 
ing ; then is it not the height of folly to expect to do with inani- 
mate chemicals and purely mechanical inanimate machinery 
what people deny that spiritual mediums and clairvoyants do? 

Take a watch for instance that you have carried for many 
years and which has been charged and re-charged with your 
own personal magnetism, put it in contact with the person of 
the clairvoyant, and she receives impressions. Ask her how 
she knows what she tells you of your past and present and she 
may say that she cannot tell you ; and perhaps she is not aware 
that by the watch being charged with your magnetism they 
extract therefrom your disposition and character, and some 
things of your past and present life so distinctly that they are 
able to tell you concerning them. If they told you all they 



43 

knew of your character they would tell more than they do; 
they seldom tell anything but the best. 

But why do mediums who intend to be honest get half of 
what they tell so far from the facts, even when receiving 
thoughts direct from "spirits of the departed ?" 

Because the persons ("spirits of the departed") are as ig- 
norant as the mediums themselves concerning the subjects of 
their communication, and they will average to be as false as 
living people, that is to say as those still occupying a body of 
their own ; and mediums because they converse with the 
"departed" by inspiration, think that what they receive must be 
true. Hence the necessity to "try the spirits" and know "the 
spirit of truth, and the spirit of error," as the Apostle says. 

Evil spirits work upon the mind all that is possible during 
sleep. Some years ago I heard a happy Methodist say that he 
had been to sleep nights as happy as could be and awoke in the 
morning feeling as if he did not have a particle of religion. He 
wondered. It was a mystery. It was to me then. When the 
world learns to know "the spirit of truth, and the spirit of 
error" you will find it a different world. 

All clairvoyants are conscious of being thought readers to 
a greater or less extent. All these things are wrought by 
Nature's processes. They are as natural as the production of 
apples by the apple tree. They belong to their sphere in the 
same sense that the faculties that make the carpenter and 
mechanic do to its sphere ; and that makes the musician to its 
sphere ; but they are all in the human brain. 

Some people are so lacking in the faculties of mechanism 
that they do not think they could make a hog's trough. Do such 
people carry a watch in their pocket or look out upon our build- 



ings and magnificent structures and machinery and mechanism 
and deny that there is any such thing, and call our carpenters 
and mechanics a set of fakes ? No, they would be fools if they 
did. 

Then I say the person is none the less a fool who denies 
thought communication and near relatives simply because he 
has not enough of those faculties to be conscious of their exist- 
ence in the human brain, or enough so he is aware of its pres- 
ence in his own brain, when he looks out into the world and 
knows of its existence just as well as he knows that houses are 
built or watches are made — those who have studied phrenology 
will be better capable of comprehending those facts. 

"The fool hath said in his heart there is no God," yet 
reason and all nature teach him different ; he knows it is a lie. 

Dear friends, a selfish monopoly of this knowledge can be 
called a tyranny of the past. (The world will not much longer 
remain submerged in selfish dog-eat-dogism). These features 
are a part of man's brain and of his nature as truly as any 
feature of his being, and is subject to cultivation and growth 
as really as anything that man is capable of learning, in any 
study, profession or trade ; and nobody can be a thoroughly put- 
up well rounded human being without all the faculties being 
developed and under control. 

It is nothing to be afraid of only as evil doers are afraid to 
have their thoughts known. Only those are afraid of it who 
are lacking in intellectuality, morality, or both. Those are 
afraid of it who are so rooted in putridity and falsehood that 
they fear anybody whom they think is liable to know their 
thoughts. 



45 

Thought reading and thought influence like all good 
things, is made to serve the lower grade purposes of evil doers ; 
if it were not so the devil or evil forces would always be help- 
less, they could not compete with righteous forces ; this is 
strictly in accordance with the scriptures. They must have 
some way of closely imitating the opposition, the divine and 
the righteous, else they could never stand any chance, and the 
two forces must exist at times because every condition in the 
universe has, and must have its opposite. 

But thought reading or influence is no surer evidence of 
good principles than reading or writing is evidence that a 
person is an electrician or mechanic- A person's ability to 
consciously receive another's thoughts or to impress another 
person with his own thoughts, or influence another person by 
the silent force of his own thoughts (I am satisfied to call it 
praying) is no more evidence of his being in connection with 
the Deity, or possessing righteous principles, than it is evidence 
of his being a disreputable "fox" or a veritable devil incarnate; 
and everybody receives of these thought influences. 

9- 

Think you St. John was engaging in idle talk or vain babble 
in his advise ? 

Why try the spirits? St. John answers the question 
before breaking the sentence: "Because many false prophets 
are gone out into the world." So you see by "spirits" he did 
not mean invisible things an inconceivable distance away, nor 
in any modern "spirit land," but to living people in the natural 
body as well as "departed" spirit personalities (the spiritual 
world is in humanity). The greatest accomplishment of a 
human being is to carry out the advise to "try the spirits," which 



46 

accomplishment gives us to know "the spirit of truth and the 
spirit of error." 

''The spirit of truth" is so closely counterfeited as to be 
impossible for the world at large to know one from the other 
at the present time ; yet we cannot sip of the wisdom of John 
without observing as vast a difference in "the spirit of truth, 
and the spirit of error" as there is in black and white. There 
is as much difference even in the material of the body of a 
truthful person and that of a liar as there is in the material of 
a putrid cesspool and a clear, pure, sparkling fountain. 

10. 

If you were to ask me to tell you how to become a 
conscious recipient of other people's thoughts and how to "try 
the spirits," to know "the spirit of truth and the spirit of 
error," I should tell you that if I were not telling you in this 
Plain Talk then I cannot. Your nature was receptive to the 
truth that 2 and 2 are 4 and 4 times 5 are 20 or your instruc- 
tors never could have inspired you with that truth. I may 
suggest and declare a truth, but I cannot comprehend it for 
you ; you cannot comprehend it for another. You cannot 
receive truth and know it from error and be made free by it 
unless you are willing and anxious. 

If the world is captivated and oppressed by the spirit of 
falsehood (as we know it is) it is because the truth was re- 
fused until, just in accordance with the Bible, God sent a 
strong delusion that a lie should be believed, and so the world 
was given over to "the spirit of error" to be put through the 
school of experience, which was the only way to bring it back 
to "the spirit of truth." 



47 

There is not one particle of reason in the profession that 
the Holy Spirit is in the present-day church, or that its mem- 
bers are in the slightest degree actuated by that Spirit. If 
they were, would they be dominated by the tyranny and false- 
hood of false prophets in church and state, in religion and poli- 
tics, whose inspiration is from hell, and whose ambition is to 
make the church accept "the spirit of error ?" 

No, they would know "the spirit of truth and the spirit of 
error." 

Select one person from every church in every town, vil- 
lage and city in America. Bring them together. Would they 
be of "one heart and one soul?" 

No. 

Would they manifest the spirit of the original church? 

No. 

There would be as many standards of religion and mor- 
ality as there were persons, each one holding to pet theories 
that he had been educated to, and to quibblings that amount to 
nothing but self- justification for his particular "spirit of error." 

There would also be as many pocket books as persons and 
each would want a good bank account whether the rest had a 
place to lay the head or not. In fact what would please any 
of them best would be to have a selfish monopoly over all the 
rest and appear as a great philanthropist, when in reality he 
would be nothing but a counterfeit of the Christ Spirit and of 
true civilization — a false prophet. 

What is the matter with Carnegie's and Rockefeller's dona- 
tions? Their money is no more tainted than is every dollar 
accepted by every preacher of the modern church. The whole 
system is tainted with Diabolism — not only tainted with, but 
is the spirit of hell — "the spirit of error." 



48 



ii. 



The thought reading to which we have thus far referred 
has been correctly called SYMPATHETIC THOUGHT 
TRANSFERENCE. Just what others mean by that I have 
never seen nor heard elucidated. 

By sympathetic thought reading I do not mean that I must 
be in sympathy with you concerning a matter in order for you 
to be impressed with my thoughts, and know that they are my 
thoughts ; and for me to receive in return a conscious impres- 
sion of what you think about it ; far from it, our positions may 
be contrary one to the other. 

What I would call a purely sympathetic communication 
is when the minds of the parties engaged in the communi- 
cation are in agreement, upon the subject of their conversation 
to say the least. 

For instance, you and a particular friend separate for a 
time. One of those times of release from duties of close con- 
finement come to you. Your mind suddenly and joyously 
reverts to that friend ; you wish to meet him. 

As if by inspiration, (it is inspiration, of its kind), your 
friend receives the impression. A note of joyous sympathy 
sweetly responds : "I will." The connection is complete, and 
you both know it. Both don your wraps and start (People are 
sometimes controlled like that without knowing it ; the one 
controlling may know it, and he may not). You may have 
business somewhere and your time is limited. Your friend 
follows the course of his inclinations and soon you meet. Thus 
far the communication is purely sympathetic. Your short 
visit is agreeable to both. 



49 

But a little after separating again you are suddenly 
seized with gloom and remorse from the mind of your friend. 
That is sympathetic in the sense that the miserable feeling that 
comes to you is by your being sensitive to your friend's 
thoughts and feelings, but not sympathetic in any sense of 
your minds being agreed in intentions, principles or motives, 
because there is no reason for any feeling of remorse or guilt 
on your part ; so from one point of view that thought communi- 
cation is purely sympathetic; from another point of view, not 
at all sympathetic. 

That friend's conscience when visiting with you was at 
ease, but after leaving you and thinking of your noble princi- 
ples and strictly truthful dealing, and of your confidence in 
him to be the same with you, and of his deceiving you, his 
conscience rebels. But the mental telegraphy continues. The 
friend knowing that you are receiving it all and that you are 
discovering his falsehood and his character, begins to loathe 
and despise you, begins to get angry. In that instant of fierce 
passion he may be angry enough to butcher you, but the coun- 
teracting power of an opposite spirit from you is felt by him 
and he is conscious that you have received that also, and 
instantly he is brought on to safer ground again. 

A few hours, or few days after, or perhaps right then, he 
is sorry, feels penitent and would like to take you by the 
hand and confess and ask your forgiveness. You feel to for- 
give. But his evil passions rise again as he receives of your 
thoughts and he says "No, I'll not confess, it is too much of a 
humiliation, I'll show him too that he don't know my thoughts 
nor control me." And so that thought communication brings 



50 

you to know each other as no face-to-face and lip-and-tongue 
conversation had ever done and never would. 

There is not a shade, phase or degree of any passion, 
sensation or feeling but is communicable by thought trans- 
ference. Feelings of anger, guilt, remorse, contempt, revenge, 
hatred, loathing, independence, defiance; friendship, love, 
kindness, humility, penitence, forgiveness, benevolence, sta- 
bility, truthfulness ; stinginess, hard-heartedness, coldness, sel- 
fishness, falsehood ; fear, terror, gloom, despair, sorrow, discon- 
tentment, bondage; calmness, boldness; happiness, health, joy, 
faith, hope, freedom ; sickness and every passion and sensation 
to which humanity is subject, in varying phases and combina- 
tions, is communicable by thought transference ; whereas most 
people find it impossible to represent their thoughts and feel- 
ings by word of mouth. 



I have scores of pages in my note books of mental com- 
munications between myself and other parties ; some of them 
short, some long. I will give you a sample by quoting from 
one of my note books a part of a complicated mental communi- 
cation between myself and a friend. I shall occasionally 
change a word, and a wicked' deed spoken of will not be given 
as in the note book : 

Friday night Oct. 25, 1901 : Last night I retired about 
10. About 10:40 he awoke me. A darkness is upon him 
more dense than anything that ever filled him before. I'm 
at a loss to account for it. Terrible, terrible vibrations go 
through him. 

I'll be calm. I'll control myself that I may save him too; 
but let it be so mighty in him, and let his thoughts be on the 
real thing, that I may get it with no mistake. 



51 

He undertakes to blame me saying: He's to blame for 
this, for my despairing of life ; you're a curse to me, a thorn in 
my flesh. And Oh ! the mighty bane with which he said it. 

Taking hold of the reins myself to make sure that danger 
is held in check and even wondering if his unspeakable dark- 
ness was caused by his being a party to the wicked transac- 
tion and unfaithfulness to our contract, that comes to me so 
vividly, I asked: What is the matter? What can be going 
on? 

And suddenly there comes from him great and terrible 
breezes and vibrations. The black thought: He's thinking of 
committing suicide, forces itself upon me. 

Realizing that I must control myself first of all in order 
to avert this catastrophe, in calmness and sweetness and power 
that I was enabled to produce for the occasion, in perfect con- 
fidence that I should reach him (knowing that I should reach 
him) I cried ; Stay thy hand from this terrible deed. It cannot 
be committed. It shall not be done, my friend, my friend. I 
have affected him. 

But more and greater vibrations. Oh ! Oh ! A heaving of 
fearful sighs, a raising of the hands in horror! A jumping of 
every nerve! A terrifically terrorizing sensation as if facing 
the most horrifying peril ! He already begins to choke. The 
deed is in progress and I am conscious of it. Oh, dear friend 
I'll lay down my life rather than let you take yours. A con- 
tinued choking at the throat. Along here somewhere there 
came a little burning at the stomach. I cried: My God has 
he taken poison? Not much anyway, but if so the power of 
mind shall kill its effect. 

He asked : Am I not too far ? 



52 

I replied : You are not. Oh, hear my plea. Grasping 
my own hands as if grasping his and making it seem real to 
him I said : Dear friend withhold thyself, let my friendship 
and influence restrain thee now. 

Repetitions of the above. From the beginning he yields 
to my plea. Through the whole, as soon as I was made con- 
scious of his distress there seemed to him to be an assuaging of 
the irritations, and a light in the darkness. At the climax of 
each romantically vibrating scene there seemed a mystical burn- 
ing fire as if of purification, the flowing of ten thousand times 
ten thousand dulciferous streams to which the sweetness of 
honey cannot compare. There seemed a myriad of burning 
lights (tho no single blaze; and unlike the light of the Sun 
or of a lamp), lighting up every nook and corner of his dark- 
ened soul. 

Strange as it may seem this is no phantasm. It was a 
stern reality ; a strange blending of these two extremes, of 
darkness and light, of despair and hope; and scientifically ac- 
counted for by his dark and despairing mind being penetrated 
by thought force (from my mind) of the opposite nature; as I 
"took in" the situation and realized that something must be 
done and that I must do it, and do it quickly, I threw myself 
into a high and exultant peace, quiet, hope and refining love, 
knowing that I was going to carry him through, because he 
was going to receive, without hesitating, a thought force exact- 
ly opposite from the despairing thought force being generated 
by his own mind. 

We were separated in the dead of night with no means of 
transmitting intelligence except by thought communication. 
But we were in connection on the mental telegraphic exchange. 



53 

I said : Must I go over there ? 

He answered : No, not necessarily, I'm all right, or going 
to be. I'm coming through safely. 

Another mighty plunge into darkness and condemnation 
during which time I was obliged to question: Is he in the 
midst of that wicked deed, that awful hypocrisy? for there's 
some great wrong done me ; but I must not be easily affected 
for, to save him I must be strong. I asked : Must I go over 
there? Must I get out of this bed and go quickly, or will 
tomorrow do ? — for he had an intense desire, that words alone 
cannot describe, to see me. 

He replied : No, I'm all right. I mean I'll not take my 
life ; so worry not, I'll see you Saturday night. 

And here I seemed impressed that he'd been out after 
dark, at a time I would be at home, and I said : Is he out 
now? 

With a power that he intended and knew I wquld get he 
answered: No, I am at home. 

I asked : Is he saying this to make me believe a lie ? 

In greater force and confidence, with every nerve astir 
and his entire frame shaking he makes reply: I am at my 

home on Street. And Oh, my friend, that I could 

at this moment grasp your hand and tell you how I now realize 
that you have been trying to radiate my being with a higher, 
more refined and purer life and love — an undertone : but I'll not 
tell you all. I've done the wicked deed. 

A repeating of the above and then the still undertone again 
as tho he did not want me to get that : A deception, I won't 
tell all — fainter and stiller yet: I've done the wicked deed, 
you shant know that. 



54 

Said I : I'll know about it, in an unguarded and un- 
thought of moment in a clear atmosphere it will be forced from 
your mind and I'll get it unadulterated with other thoughts. 

He answered : I want you to know, I'll tell you — shrink- 
ing a little and saying in a holding-back tone : There's some- 
thing you shant know about. 

At times I seemed powerfully impressed to go to the win- 
dow as tho he were passing, or was going to pass, or had 
passed, and knowing that he was filled with an inexpressible 
desire to come to my house. I went to the window. I saw 
nobody. An impression: he's neither here nor coming; it is 
all but an unrejectable thought in his mind to come. A voice: 
Look a moment longer. I looked. A person coming across 
the street a little below our house. Steps quick. Walking 
rapidly ! It seemed as if I never saw a person move at such 
a rapid rate unless running at a good lick. So swiftly did he 
glide along and so smoothly, so short and smooth the hitches 
from step to step that I could but think me of a phantastic 
spectral glare. I watched and wondered. I reasoned like 
this : It can't be him unless he's hastening to fill an appoint- 
ment and suffered this beforehand. 

My impressions were correct — it was not him. I return 
and slumber. I awake once or twice more and find him suffer- 
ing some condemnation. 



Thought communications relative to that same matter 
were held at times, with other thoughts and ideas interposing, 
for the next three or four days, and occasionally for many 
months. And in places I have left out parts of what I have 
pretended to give you. (That is one of scores of conscious 



55 



mental telegraphic conversations between myself and other 
persons that are recorded in my note books. But were they 
all recorded and all written out in full a monstrous volume could 
not contain them). 

It was but a short time from that that I improved an oppor- 
tunity of a face-to-face conversation with him. I never, before 
nor since, witnessed such a look of humility and shame upon 
a person's face as were forced to the surface of his face and 
into his eyes. 

With his own lips he told me of being on a certain street 
that night; sure enough he passed the house where I was, on 
the street that faced my bedroom window and within less than 
ten rods from it. 

I presented and read to him my written account of the 
affair. He remarked coolly and in a tone that anybody could 
see that he did not mean it, that I made it worse than it was. 

I do not remember whether it was just then, but at some 
point I said to him : It makes you mad to have me know some 
things, but what would you do if I did not know? What 
would be the result ? And do you suppose if I had not known 
your condition that night you would be here now ? 

He answered : I don't know. 

But said I : You do know, and I know, that if your state 
of mind had not reached me and I had not thrown myseli 
into an opposite state of mind from your own and controlled 
you with that opposite state sufficiently to light your darkened 
soul you would not have seen the light of another day. He 
made no reply. 

I spoke to him about the burning sensation in his stomach ; 
he said he was not feeling just right and his mother gave him 
some medicine. 



56 

All people will not be able to receive these truths. I can- 
not give understanding to those who lack the foundation. The 
uninitiated will not be capable of understanding thoroughly. 
Many who have not been able to comprehend will be sensitized, 
and learn hereafter. Many others will now look back over 
past experiences and see that they knew but didn't know that 
they knew. Most of you will know this world better in time 
to come, and many of you will be thankful (for some reasons) 
that you knew it no better in the past. iSome of you will find 
that you didn't know so much as you thought you did — that 
in many things, you didn't know and didn't know that you 
didn't know. Those who have had the necessary experience 
will comprehend all I say. 

For the benefit of truth seekers I will say that I wanted 
to know him and I willingly left my mind sensitive to his 
thoughts, that I might receive them, and in the same sense 
that I previously mentioned this as sympathetic thought trans- 
ference I passed through the experience with him. I literally 
took his burden of despair upon myself. Instead of being 
fully forced by his state of mind under the hypnotic spell of 
hell that he deliberately plunged himself into, and dying with 
him a miserable death that night, I reversed the current (so 
to speak) and forced our "canoe" from the clutches of a 
Niagara whirlpool, and gave him light for darkness ; peace 
and calm for misery, fear, terror and despair, and saved both 
myself and him. 

If we had both been found dead the next morning — well, I 
have an organic disease of the heart of many years standing ; 
and the talk of the newspapers and the people all about would 
have been that I died of heart disease ; and perhaps the other 



57 

party would have been examined and a report made that poison 
was found ; or all sorts of imaginings, theories and speculations 
might have gone the rounds. You can also see that his 
"conscience was not seared as with a hot iron" or he would have 
had no such experience, and I might not have found him out. 

12 

Some people get the idea that this knowledge of thought 
force and influence brings the Bible out in poor light — reveals 
it as a false guide. That is not true. It reveals the truthful- 
ness of the Bible in a clearer light. 

Those of us who understand this matter a little have 
thought sometimes that it was rather hard to be placed under 
clouds of anger, revenge, spite, sorrow, guilt, or poison thought 
force of some kind from a little circle of friends ; but what do 
you think of the Christ with all the thought force and full cur- 
rent of this rotten, lying, hypocritical old world turned upon 
him? It is no wonder to me that, being as He is the central 
target of this old cesspool of a world, that in his agony in the 
Garden of Gethsemane he should sweat great drops of blood. 
Jesus Christ was what the Bible represents him, the Divine One. 
I can understand now how He could save the world. 

And if the present-day church had not become decadent, 
swallowed up in fallacy and lies, its members would realize 
that wilfully continuing their lying lives and saying: "O, 
Jesus will forgive and take all my burdens", is the work of 
tyrannical brutes, of sneaks and cowards, of contemptible curs. 
JESUS CHRIST WAS NOT TO REMAIN A TARGET 
FOR PHARISEES AND HYPOCRITES FOREVER. HE 
WAS NOT TO REMAIN FOREVER SENSITIVE TO 



58 

THE CRUSHING BLOOD-SWEATING WEIGHT OF 
WHITED SEPULCHRES. There was neither bluster nor 
bluff in His declaration that "Many be called but few chosen." 



iWhen we have friends who use our forgiving spirit for 
a license to do as they please and follow evil inclinations, we 
cast our "pearls before swine" if we continue our intense 
friendship for them, because 9999 chances to ten thousand 
they will psychologize you to a reckless life of "I-don't care" 
and to a veritable hell in earth. And so the world, church and 
state, have these many centuries been using the forgiving 
spirit of the Christ for a license to follow the pathways of Satan, 
reckless of the fact that "many be called but few chosen." 



I will quote a part of another communication with the 
friend previously mentioned. On a Saturday evening we had 
been walking on the street together. I wrote the following in 
my note book : 

About 8 130 he began to think of the fib he told me. 
So heavy the condemnation that he staggers under its 
weight — he had lied to me, (at any rate I knew what he was 
doing after he saw me that evening). Sunday: After I 
retired last night further and stronger information of his pro- 
ceedings last evening makes its impression upon me. Scarcely 
a wink did he sleep all night — that stinging conscience, burning 
hell, in him all night long. He would awake me calling for 
my help. 

I answered : I must not lie awake all the time ; so do 
your feelings affect me that I'll be sick if I do not rebel; I will 
not receive all of this. 



59 

In agony he cried : O, I've got him hardened against me. 
His sympathetic responses are not like they were. He is 
steeled. 

He would call upon me for help but would not accept 
it. I said : If he has the strength to put his distress upon me, 
have I not power to ward it off? It must go if there's a God 
in Israel. It went in an instant. 

But he rebelled against it because he would not be influ- 
enced by me. So I answered : I'll sleep whether you will or 
not, let us rest. In an instant we were both sleepy, but he 
broke himself loose from it, bound to suffer and influence me 
with his feelings. I slept the larger part of the night — 
because I would. I pitied the poor fellow, but it would not be 
right for me to give in to such distress. Strange to say he 
seemed bound to keep my friendship, but indulge his hypocrisy 
if it did keep me in death and hell. 

IS NOT THIS A GOOD REPRESENTATION OF 
THE SPIRIT OF SO-CALLED CHRISTENDOM AND 
CIVILIZATION TOWARDS THE CHRIST WHOM 
THEY PROFESS TO LOVE AND FOLLOW? 



Loving friends were in great darkness, even to despair- 
ing of life. I was sensitive to their thoughts, and consequently 
bore their burdens. While the inspiration was upon me I wrote 
as follows : 

They know I am sensing the whole thing again : they know 
I rebel and in my prayers for them think : If you will persist in 
your own course to* your own destruction instead of yielding 



*From chapter on closing remarks in Psychologized by Satan, 
which I contemplate having printed. 



60 

and being helped to a stronger and better life you will have to 
go alone, at least so far as I am concerned, it would not be right 
for me to go too, and I will not : If you will not come the better 
way and find deliverance, you shall not psychologize me down 
your path of destruction. Let your thoughts go where they 
may so be it that I will not suffer the torturing meannesses of 
hell that your thoughts put upon yourself and me by your false 
and hypocritical life. What better are you than those you 
condemn? I will count you for my enemies, and for silly 
hypocritical destroyers of true manhood if you continue your 
popular hypocritical course and insist upon my honoring it. 
As intense as your friendship for me, and as much as I have 
encouraged, loved and honored it I will now, tho it be like 
breaking a bar of steel in two, dishonor and lose it rather than 
lower myself to your false standard and lose my sensitiveness 
to truth, and the little manhood that I possess : if so be that I 
cannot raise you, you shall not k'wer me. If this is self-exalta- 
tion, make the best of it. "If I perish, I perish only there." 
Step to the front dear friends if you will ; if not, adieu, adieu. 

13- 

That man or woman is unworthy the name of philosopher, 
scientist, teacher or thinker who is not cognizant of the antith- 
esis of all conditions, and that they cannot see the beauties 
and bright side of anything only as they compare the good 
with the evil. 

Humanity rises and falls at regular periods, as regularly 
as the Sun appears and disappears every 24 hours ; conse- 
quently a Messiah appears just as regularly. There is a con- 
stant repetition of all things and all conditions. (Don't fail 



61 

to read Eccl. 1:4-10 and 3:15). Each period of the fall of 
man when ignorance, war, disease, trouble, lies and hypocrisies 
run riot is when the devil has the world under his hypnotic ban, 
right where it is now. But the devil's time is nearly up, and 
another Golden Day, ("new world," or age), which consists 
of thousands of years, will soon dawn upon the world again. 
Solomon in the first chapter of Proverbs has pictured the state 
of the present age. What saith the voice of wisdom ? 



"She uttereth her words saying: 

"How long ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and 
scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? 

"I have called and ye refused; I have stretched out my 
hand and no man regarded. 

"I also will laugh at their calamity. I will mock when 
their fear cometh: 

"Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer : they 
shall seek me early but they shall not find me: 

"For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the 
fear of the Lord: 

"They would none of my council : they despised all my 
reproof : 

"Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, 
and be filled with their own devices. 

"The turning away of the simple shall slay them, and 
the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." 

(Stop and think what this means). 



62 



14- 

Could we only realize as we ought to that thought is dis- 
ease or health producing, both to self and others, just to the 
extent of our thinking. With falsehood, hypocrisy and cor- 
ruption in the mind (just as much as with truth, love and 
joy), you are, (consciously or unconsciously) sending out elec- 
tric and magnetic currents, and do you think they find no 
lodging place? If so you are mistaken, for your thoughts 
are spirit entities and they go where you send them and their 
mission depends on what they are, diseased or healthy, happy 
or unhappy. 

A lie told or done (or merely thought, without being 
spoken or performed) is poison, its only antidote is righteous- 
ness. Thoughts of anger and revenge and hate are poison 
and are disease producing; their only antidote is a sane mind, 
love and a forgiving spirit. 

* Anybody is unworthy the name of thinker or teacher who 
does not know that he cannot make the world bright if he is 
a bundle of clouds; that he cannot make those on whom he 
thinks cheerful if guilt and gloom are in his own mind, that 
the attempt to make a light shine that is not there is an at- 
tempted deception, an attempt to appear what we are not; 
that we may close our lips and cover our face or keep at a 
distance from those we think on, that it is our thoughts that 
affect them, whether they know in whose sky the clouds are that 
are sometimes peculiarly and unaccountably befogging their 
mind, or from whose sky is the cheerfulness and brightness 
often reflected to peculiarly and unaccountably light their way; 
that every thought is a spirit entity charged with a greater or 
less degree of electrifying and magnetizing power and that 



63 

whether shining or cloudy, or whatever the nature of those 
thoughts, somebody is their recipient by a clear, or befogging 
conception of what it means, from whom influences (thought 
entity) still more mixed and misunderstood, or clearer and 
better understood, flow out to others and still to others until the 
original thought, however great and high, becomes so dilapi- 
dated and vitiated; or so constructed, conserved and focused, 
that scarcely a vestige of the original thought remains ; or 
more of the wonderful truth is collected; but always helping 
light or cloud the world's pathway, to enlighten or delude 
their minds, to principle the world in falsehood or truth, good 
or evil ; that this is the work of our thoughts in the world tho 
our mouth speak not and pen write not ; or regardless of what 
we speak or do, that it is our thoughts that move the world 
in whatever direction it travels; that the thoughtful people 
know that society is out of gear, but not knowing the cause 
they do not know the remedy and so grope in darkness, the 
blind leading the blind and both falling into the ditch; and 
that the present condition of affairs is evidence of all this 
and cannot be denied: I say the person who does not know 
these things is not worthy the name of thinker or teacher. 

If you wrong me and it acts woefully upon me, the woe 
from my mind is forced upon your own and in connection 
with the guilt of your own gives you a double potion of your 
own sin. Deceive and wrong your best friend and you 
will suffer the guilt and distress consequent thereto sooner or 
later, and those very thoughts may reach him and be a revela- 
tion to him, and also a source of distress until life is a burden 
only as he manages to forget you ; and some would do well to 
ask themselves the question: Instead of a blessing am I not 



64 

a curse even to the one who loves me best? Yet if on the 
progressive side of the human world all these experiences will 
be interesting, and they are necessary to our development. 
We must go through hell or we could not appreciate heaven. 

Many people think that their thoughts are all private and 
secret property ; but I tell you it is not so. When a mechanical 
electrical battery is in operation, electricity flows from it. 
When you think, your thoughts flow from you. Ralph Waldo 
Emerson said : "Men imagine that they communicate their 
virtue or vice by overt actions, and do not know that their 
virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. 

But the beauty of it is, you do the right with me, and 
if my nature responds in appreciation, or even if I -am your 
enemy and you feel kindly and treat me thus, there is. satisfac- 
tion in it for you, and the light that you shed on my pathway 
might be thrown back from my mind to more than double the 
light of your own. Do you not perceive? "Thou preparest 
a table before me in the presence of mine enemies ; thou an- 
nointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over." 

Thus can we see, particularly if we have a little experi- 
mental knowledge of these things, how the powers of the mind 
of humanity under the present fallacious evil system are not 
only thrown to waste, but outrageously abused. 

But the leaven is at work. The whole lump will soon be 
leavened. The nature of humanity will be changed so as not 
to call evil good and good evil. It will love the light instead 
of darkness. 



66 



IS. 



Blind people are great mind readers. A blind medium 
will even tell you the color of your hair and eyes, and tell 
your disposition and character. That however may not be 
done by taking your immediate thoughts, but by impressions 
from your magnetism, and by different impressions received 
from different colors. There is no doubt but anybody could 
do it by practice. You know the effect of red upon an animal ? 
green has the opposite effect: it is strengthening, but it pro- 
duces quiet and contentment. 

Here are two churches. Number I is spiritually inclined, 
full of faith, friendliness, unity, welcome stranger and "God 
bless you" everybody. Number 2 is worldly, unbelieving, 
everybody pulling in a different direction, never feeling "God 
bless you." You enter each place. Do you need to be told 
the condition of each? No, you may be blindfolded, every 
mouth stilled, the people simply thinking, and you will receive 
the spirit of each congregation. Allowing for argument's sake 
that one is of God and the other of the Devil: then is God 
and good spirits any more subject to being felt than is the 
devil and evil spirits? 

Every living thing is an electric battery. Thoughts pos- 
sess vitality, life and force — they are "spirit entities." 

Some may think they will not be "controlled," but will 
do as they please. But you may turn which ever way you 
please, some sort of spirit, some force from both without you 
and within, is "controlling" you. 

A noticeable feature in my experiences has been that if 
I let some people know of my knowing their thoughts they 



66 

think of me as possessing mysterious power beyond them and 
as being superior to them; then if they know my thoughts 
they still think of me as superior to them, and they feel hu- 
miliated under the impression that I can both take their 
thoughts and move them by the power of my thoughts. Thus 
have leaders noticed the readiness of the masses to be bluffed. 
Thus is the world bluffed into tyranny and slavery by selfish, 
non-Christlike, political, financial and religious leaders. 



I have a friend who is a druggist. One evening at 
the store he felt impressed that there was something at 
home for which he must go. He went. His wife was 
there alone — so far as he could see after looking about 
a little. He was giving it up and was passing some 
folding doors that were apparently thrown carelessly open 
into the corner of the house. He felt a powerful impression 
to look back of those doors. There he found in hiding a — 
young gentleman if you please. 



I had a lady friend. Of one experience in thought com- 
munication I will quote a little from my note book: One 
morning when she was feeling exceedingly blue I wrote her 
a letter as follows: 

My Dear Friend: — Short of time but feel like speaking 
to you. God bless your dear heart. What is the matter? 
Why do you feel as you have since 9:25? You feel better 
(by impressions from my mind) I perceive. Take heart, dear 
girl. Conic thou forth as bright as the Morning Star, as 
ha])]))- as the happiest and strong as the strongest. Let the 



67 

vibrating power of a mighty strengthening force accompany 
these words. "Be still and know that I am God." Hold to 
your equilibrium. In stillness is harmony. In harmony is 
power. Think on these things. Let us determine to think 
of those we love in joyful sweetness that lifts to heights of 
ecstacy, not in depressing sadness, but rather bid the latter 
depart. Let us not say: I wish you would go, but in the 
dignity of the "I am" and by the "powers that be," command 
it to go. In cheerfulness is life. In sadness is death. There 
are things you wish to say to me. Now speak. 

My thoughts went immediately and performed their mis- 
sion. I intended that they should and knew that they did at 
the instant. I sent the letter as an example. It was correct. 
Thinking I might want the letters I had written I asked 
her to return them; she said she would. The next Sunday 
about 2 o'clock I became aware that she was laboring under 
a terrible depression. I knew that her mind then was to visit 
at a friend's that afternoon where I often called and that she 
thought to see me (at church in the evening if not before). 
I knew she was thinking to get those letters to give me. She 
thought to read them again for the last time and — I knew it. 
She felt terribly — and I knew it. 

In my mind I said : Never mind, do not read them again. 
You have read them several times already. You have profited 
by them; do not destroy it all now. If we are going to be 
friends let us be friends and enjoy it. Do what you know is 
right and rejoice. You have many times been in need of help 
as from a friend; I have befriended and helped you. Love 
me if you wish, but not 'after this fashion; I will not be a 
target for such thought force. Away with this gloom, I will 
not have it. Be brave, my friend. Be brave. 



She received the impression from my mind. She did 
not read the letters again, but she gave them to me that even- 
ing. I told her about it, naming the time by the clock that 
she started to get the letters. It was all correct. 

16. 

Some people have a wonderful faculty of reading human 
nature ; they receive correct impressions at first sight. Such 
people have a large brain faculty of what, phrenologically 
speaking, is called Human Nature ; it is located in the center 
of the upper forehead. 

While this form of mind reading is not what this lecture 
started out to treat upon, it is mind reading none the less, 
and nobody will attempt to deny it. I do not consider it sym- 
pathetic in the sense and degree of which we have spoken so 
much ; because the other party might turn his thought current 
up a maple tree, yet I think the person with the large brain 
organ of Human Nature would get his impression. 

People with large faculties of what Phrenology calls 
Agreeableness, and Adhesiveness (Friendship) generate so 
strong a force of that friendly attractive spirit that all who 
see them are at once affected by their winning fascinating 
"something" ; so that all who see them, immediately know that 
portion of their mind. If those people have a large faculty 
of Amitiveness (love of the opposite sex) then the opposite 
sex arc quite universally attracted to them, so that few are 
capable of entirely resisting them, even tho they are of a dis- 
sipated and evil character. (How can any sane person deny 
mind force and thought communication?) Now add to the 
above a large faculty of Philoprogenitiveness (love of chil- 



69 

«dren) and all the children are wonderfully attracted by such 
a person ; they feel in his or her presence a charm or fascina- 
tion. All this is mind reading. Thus we might go on almost 
indefinitely. 

It seems almost incredible that rational beings should 
deny that thought communication is as universal as the race, 
and not confined to any power of Deity. 

The photographer uses a phototype, or sensitized plate, 
to print his pictures. So it seems almost incredible that an 
intellectual humanity in an age of so-called civilization and sci- 
ence, should be so completely sensitized to receiving and giv- 
ing impressions of the Devil. 

Every passion to which the mind is subject is depicted 
upon the face and in the eye: Love, joy, friendship, anger, 
independence, defiance, etc. Even the poor dog cowers at 
your feet if you frown upon him. The power of the human 
eye can cower any animal. Animals are sensitive to thought. 
The stalwart tree, the herb of the field, the house plant, are 
all sensitive to thought. The housewife who dearly loves her 
plants has thriving beautiful ones. Let her take her thoughts 
practically from them and let the man with cold indifferent 
thoughts of "I wish you were out of the way, I wish you were 
dead," be constantly about them, tho giving them the same 
watering and cultivation and sunshine, and you will see them 
begin to droop as if under a cloud of sorrow. (Thought force 
may not only relieve disease but make it; it cannot only raise 
from the dead, but it can kill. Devils cannot raise from the 
dead. People think sometimes to get rid of a person by kill- 
ing, but they may accomplish more against their murderer in 
spirit than would be possible in a body of their own). It has 



70 

been demonstrated that honey bees and other insects know 
each other's thought 
mind communication. 



each other's thoughts. All these are forms and modes of 



17. 

I have had people try to test me by giving me explicit 
directions and then doing differently than they told me they 
were going to. 

Allow for argument's sake that it did not enter my mind 
what they were "up to" ; was it any cause for my humilia- 
tion ? 

No. 

Was it any proof against thought reading? 

No, but it was further proof to me that they were lying 
hypocrites. They are some of our "good" people, too. I do 
not say this to belittle them, as compared to other people of 
today. 

I heard a man say : "Play a trick on these mind reading 
mediums, and you can catch them." 

Any evidence there against it? 

Not a particle. 

Generally speaking, when receiving thoughts from others 
it is not because I am trying to — they simply come. So far 
as I know nobody can always take another's thoughts at will. 
As a rule they impress themselves upon one suddenly, unex- 
pected and uninvited ; but sometimes with surprising revela- 
tions. 



If you were to ask a friend to tell you what you are 
thinking about lie probably would not make the attempt, even 



71 

if he knew; but we will allow (for reasons which we need 
not stop to mention) that he could not tell you. 

Anything there against the facts? 

Not a thing. 

Ask him what you had for dinner. 

We will allow that he could not tell you. 

Ask him if you have been to dinner; and put your mind 
upon the matter affirmatively or negatively, according to 
whether you have or have not, and think upon him, and he 
may know more about it than he would had you told him with 
your lips. 



Two persons may be thinking of you at the same time 
and you may be puzzled sometimes to know "which is which" 
the impressions may not be clear enough. 

You may receive impressions of unpleasant thoughts and 
feelings that are temporarily disturbing somebody for just a 
moment, and know who it comes from but not know the cause 
of such a state of mind in them, and be suspicious of some- 
thing wrong. You did not get it all by the thought communi- 
cation because the details passed lightly and quickly through 
their mind, and you received only the portion of their thoughts 
upon which their mind centered forcibly. 

Scoffers, and haters of knowledge (knowledge which they 
lack the capacity to comprehend) tauntingly say: "You pre- 
tend to know so much, why don't you get it all? Why don't 
you tell all I have a mind to think about?" 

I would answer: You have studied arithmetic, grammar, 
geography, spelling, etc., and put a little into practice; how 
much do you know about them ? Why didn't you get even all 



72 

of what you went over ? A little is known of electricity ; it 
is only in its infancy. Why don't you get it all? 

There are variations and complications and difficulties 
in mental telegraphy the same as in everything where knowl- 
edge is incomplete. However, cases of thought transference 
at the present time could be related until your entire time 
would count for practically nothing towards reading them. 



If you should say to a person : "Take this button, I will 
select the hand in which you hold it," your success would de- 
pend upon several things. 

Your sensitiveness to other's thoughts, his ability to dis- 
miss all else from his mind and correctly focus his thoughts 
upon the button and upon you, and will you to select the hand 
that the button is in ; his honesty ; and the amount of thought 
force that he generates. 

If during the process of his willing, and your choosing 
under a passive state of mind, your thought currents are keyed, 
so to speak, on the same letter or note, as it were, with his, 
the connection is complete; and if he is honest with you the 
chances are that you may try ten times and get the button 
ten times. 

But if he tries to deceive you by directing his mind away 
from you, you will not be able to make a choice with any 
feeling of certainty; or if he forcibly wills that you take the 
hand where the button is not, you may be deceived and take 
that hand. 

If several persons put their mind upon the button, at 
the same time willing that you select the correct hand, the 
chances are that if von have had some experience in con- 



73 



scious thought reading that you will choose correctly and with 
a feeling of positiveness. If half of the number will that you 
take the left hand, and half that you take the other, you may 
be puzzled. Sometimes you will know positively when they 
are not honest with you. 



The nature and strength of our thoughts depend upon 
health, habits, extent and nature of education, quantity and 
quality of brain and each respective faculty of the brain, 
(there are about 40 pairs of organs in the brain) and groups 
of faculties ; temperament, and the amount of interest we take 
in a subject. 

The stronger the thought force of a teacher, other things 
being equal, the faster will his, or her, pupils sense (learn) 
the truths which they are supposed to. 

a. If the current from two minds is keyed respectively 
on high C and low C or on either C and G, or any two notes 
that chord, it stands to reason that the connection is all right. 
If they were keyed respectively on G and F, perhaps a con- 
nection would not be possible until one became interested or 
stimulated in some way to increase the strength (pitch in tone 
at least) of the thought and raise it to a point where his 
thought current would chord, or vibrate in unison, with the 
other person's. 

The human voice and mind are not stationary like the 
notes in an organ or piano, but are made on a sliding scale, 
subject to seemingly innumerable variations in their nature, 
not only in volume and intensity, but in their meaning and 
tone. 



Considering these things, with my experience in con- 
sciously taking thoughts from people of such varied organiza- 
tion, temperament, disposition, character and intellect, I feel 
justified in affirming that it is possible to produce conditions 
whereby pure thought communications to a greater or less 
extent can be established between any two persons. 

I do not claim at present to know the whole truth about 
the statements in paragraph marked a. It is possible that it 
is partly a theory (you will notice I have used the word per- 
haps). 

It is said that two wires keyed the same, and strung in 
the same room, at a distance from each other and not con- 
nected, will vibrate in unison by thumping only one. I never 
tried it. 

We can talk over a telephone wire, but it must be a live 
(electrified J wire; it matters not how our voices are keyed, 
we can get perfect communication when other things are in 
proper order. 

The atmosphere being a conductor of electricity, distance 
seems to be no barrier against thought communication. Neither 
does material obstruct the flow of thought force or some spirit 
substances ; although some things do partially insulate electric- 
ity — mechanical electricity is the spirit substance of demateri- 
alized matter: zinc, vitriol, etc. Possibly there are some ma- 
terials impervious to thought force, but my opinion would be 
that there are not. 

Christ dissolved his body to spirit, entered a closed room 
and rematerialized. Elijah dissolved his body when the time 
was ripe and reinforced Klisha. "The 144,000 on Mount 
/ion" who will -0011 be with us. will dematerialize at will, pro- 



75 

ject themselves (across the continent, or ocean, if they wish) 
in an instant, and rematerialize. 

To perfect mental telegraphy possibly it will be necessary 
to find a way to determine the note, or key, so to speak, at 
which thought force is pitched. But be that as it may, I am 
not theorizing when I say that the time is not far away when 
it will be a perfected science. Neither is it my purpose to 
spend any time trying to convince those who "hate knowledge" 
that I know what I am saying. 



Man is both a spiritual and material being. Some are 
mostly given to immediate wants and material things and have 
little appreciation of the spiritual and intuitive nature upon 
which this lecture treats. Some of them are sincere in their 
belief at times and are well called "doubting Thomas." 

Women as a rule are more given to the spiritual and 
intuitive nature than men, being generally of a more sensitive 
organization. I think it is safe to say that mental telegraphy 
is more universally carried on between the sexes than between 
men and men or women and women, and that the aftectional 
nature between the sexes is more communicated by mental 
telegraphy than any other one subject. This I consider due 
to concentration of the mind, a generating of stronger thought 
currents, and to the fact that nearly all are more or less con- 
sciously sensitized to this form of thought. 

To whatever extent thought reading may develop I do not 
consider that it would be even desirable for us in our two- 
fold nature (material and spiritual) to be confined exclusively 
to mental communications. The fact that we are of this two- 
fold nature, of the material as well as the spiritual, is proof 



positive that such cannot be intended, but would be unnatural, 
not best or even desirable while inhabiting "this earthly taber- 
nacle," "this house of clay," this material body of our own. 
Because however well developed the intuitive and spiritual 
side of our nature may be, the fact remains undisputed that 
we still possess the natural or material side, the wants and 
needs of which must be looked after. And whatever the ex- 
tent of our ability to communicate mentally with another per- 
son, because of this natural and material side of our nature 
there still remains more or less of a desire to communicate 
those same thoughts by one or more tangible material pro- 
cesses : speaking, writing, acting. 



Do not think for a moment that to be able in your present 
condition to see into the future, or know others' thoughts, is 
sure to give you a world of satisfaction and pleasure, because 
while sometimes getting satisfactory and pleasant things, it 
is sometimes as far the other way. 

The speaker in these experiences has been both cast to the 
depths of hell and lifted to the heights of heaven. He has 
had experiences most horrible and most beautiful. As bitter 
as gall and sweet as honey. As captive as the "bonds of ini- 
quity" and free as the gods. As murky as the streams of 
hades and pure as the water of life. As detestable as the 
falsehood of the pit and as enchanting and fascinating as 
angelic flights of romancy. 

Do not make the sad mistake of leaving off the "breast- 
plate of faith," if you do you might as well leave it all off. 
Do not mistake a mere opinion or belief for faith. Faith is 
the thing itself. As Paul expressed it: Faith is the substance, 



77 

the evidence. It is IT. You may think I have "got IT bad"' 
— I will not deny IT. 



Let us mention two examples of thought communica- 
tion which I think come in well right here : I knew a lady 
and gentleman who were desperately in love. She was per- 
sistently affirmative towards the matrimonial step, he was more: 
persistently negative, giving as one reason that he lacked suffi- 
cient means under present society. A day did not pass with- 
out mental communications between them. So completely 
crazed and carried away was she that she was determined not 
to give him up. 

One afternoon as she was thinking of the matter the feel- 
ing flashed through her : STEAL THE MONEY. 

He received it in an instant. Had he acquiesced, the two 
minds would have been in complete harmony and plans might 
have been laid to carry out what would then have been an 
irresistible temptation. 

Ten thousand times quicker than it takes to tell it this 
communication took place. She knew that he knew her 
thoughts, and receiving the negation as she did instantaneously 
from his mind, the temptation left her as quickly as it came. 

I know this is romantic — it is none the less true. Some 
would pooh at it — that does not alter a single fact. I know 
the whole case. 

That lady is not one of the so-called "bad people." She 
is one of us, one of the so-called "good people." Bring your- 
self under as strong temptations as others fall and receive your 
condemnation, and some of you might not do as well as many 
you disdain. 



78 

As I was in the jewelry store of a particular friend one 
day, and happening to notice some rings in the show case, he 
said of a certain "precious stone'' : It is unlucky. I asked : 
Why? He related an incident that he knew about. A lady, 

Miss A , was keeping company with a gentleman, Mr. 

B . Though she wore the ring he had given her, she 

cared nothing about him. She remarked one day, with much 
feeling, as though she were in earnest, that she wished he 
would shoot himself. Within an hour's time sparks flashed 
from that ring, and the ring burned her finger. Within an- 
other hour a boy called with a message for her that Mr. B 

was dead, he had shot himself. I intimated that the unlucky 
idea of that stone was superstition engendered by ignorance, 

and told him I could account for the whole affair. Mr. B 

undoubtedly did not know that he was being affected that 

moment by Miss A 's thoughts; neither did she think of 

her position (her mere thoughts) driving him to despair. The 
instant that he fired the fatal shot his thought force was 
directed so forcibly to that ring that it caused it to flash and 
burn the lady's finger. 



Bear with me in repeating that Christendom is ignorant 
and full of unbelief of its own Bible. Weigh every word of 
this from Paul : 

"We wrestle not against flcsh-and blood, but against prin- 
cipalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of 
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." 

Do you know anything about Jacob? "And Jacob was 
left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the break- 
ing of the day. 



79 

"And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he 
touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's 
thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him." Read Gen. 
32 124-30. 

God can make the wrath of devils to honor Him. Do 
you know anything about the lying spirit that persuaded Ahab 
to go into battle to get defeated? Read 1st Kings 22:20-23: 
"And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may 
go up and fall at Ramothgilead ? And one said on this man- 
ner, and another said on that manner. 

"And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, 
and said, I will persuade him. 

"And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, 
I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all 
his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and 
prevail also ; go forth and do so." 



Those who know nothing of trying the spirits do not know 
that their temptations may be from without as well as from 
within. 

Then keep hold of the reins and "try the spirits" and you 
will be able to guide the steed and keep right side up ; but dis- 
regard the temptation that is merely from without to-day 
and to-morrow it may be from within ; then the force is not 
only doubled but multiplied many times; and by thinking 
you knew it all when you didn't know anything, sooner or later 
the conceit will be taken out of you and yours — enchanted — 
on dangerous ground — toppling over — your own family in as 
bad predicaments as what you have thought and talked about 
others. Are not these truths being manifest more and more? 



80 



You may be in desperate straits before to-morrow morn- 
ing, and one whom you have despised may help you through; 
but you neither know it nor give them credit. You need not 
think there is no meaning to those words, "Be not forgetful 
to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained 
angels unawares." Can you "try the spirits"? 

On the other hand the force of somebody's thoughts 
("spirit entities") may be added to you and thus be a menace 
and hindrance to your freedom, a burden to your spirits, be- 
cause you have not treated them quite properly, or even because 
you have been honest and uncovered some of their iniquity, 
and you are not quite capable of handling thought force of 
that nature and degree of intensity. Can you "try the spirits''? 



Some of you may not understand temptation from with- 
out and from within. I will explain, using as simple an illus- 
tration as possible. 

To understand even theoretically, without personal con- 
scious experience, you must hold in mind the fact that thought 
is substance, and force substance too, and that thought force 
from other's minds impresses you. 

You know what it is to feel the friendship and love of 
other people ; then apply that principle to other passions and 
sensations. For instance: Vou may have discovered that 
some article of diet, such as pork, or so much meat of any 
kind, or pastries, or drinking tea or coffee, or using alcoholic 
beverages or tobacco; cheating, being deceptive, or perform- 
ing -nine habit which you have many times determined to 
"break off", is injurious to von, and morally wrong. You 
break away from it. The appetite (desire, hankering, era- 



81 

ving) for it has left you. On a special occasion you are in the 
presence of "friends" who are feasting on those things, or 
doing the things to which you are no longer a partial wreck 
or miserable slave. 

You are besieged with opportunities and requests to 
indulge. They have no conception of your true position or 
your being able to do without. Their appetite is running high 
and thought force in those particulars is strong and directed 
at that climax particularly to you. 

Not knowing perhaps from whence or how, you sense 
(feel) an appetite (desire, hankering, craving) that you had 
been rid of for some time — a pure thought transference from 
another mind, or minds, causing you to feel the same as some- 
body else. 

That temptation is from without. It does not originate 
in yourself. It is not born in yourself. You feel it within 
you, but it comes from without you — from another mind, or 
minds. 

If you allow yourself to remain sensitive to it, instead of 
negatizing, orinsulating yourself against it, the seed germinates 
and produces fruit. If you yield to that temptation from 
without, the natural fruitage results — rising of the old cravings 
and appetites that you had conquered, temptation from within. 

Even the sight of those victuals or of the coffee pot or 
tea pot, or seeing others indulge in their use is too much for 
you; the sight or scent of tobacco or cigar; the sight of the 
hotel or bar room or the smell of any liquor makes a helpless 
slave of you — thought force from another person is not needed 
now to rouse the old appetites, the temptation is from within. 



82 

Neither need the temptation from without be from a 
special gathering nor a large company. It can also come 
in different forms : A company, or a portion of a company 
(or even single person) may look upon your refusal to indulge 
or take part in somethig that the rest of a "respectable" 
company are doing, as ridiculous and foolish and an occasion 
of offense to the rest, and they actually feel hurt by your 
refusal, and feel as tho you were not treating them with due 
respect; and their conscience and a true sense of duty and 
moral obligations being morally ruined, and your friendship 
for them being active, you allow your mind to be appropriate 
soil for that ill-gotten seed to grow in, and the fruit of course 
must correspond to the seed to which you are receptive and 
which you cultivate and bring to maturity. "Try the spirits." 



An important matter of which the world is practically 
ignorant is that THE SPIRITUAL WORLD IS IN HU- 
MANITY, AND NOWHERE ELSE. When a person meets 
with the change which we call death, that spirit goes instantly 
to some other living body to abide, the "spirit of the departed" 
taking his abode in the sort of a character that has strong 
attraction for him, that character being something on the same 
level of himself; or else a little higher or a little lower, that 
depending whether he ("the departed") is on the progressive 
or retrogressive side — that is to say, whether he is improving 
in the wisdom of God or the wisdom of the Devil. 

As we have already stated with reference to spiritual 
mediums and inspiration, people ("spirits of the departed") 
possess the same features as to knowledge, wisdom, truthful- 
ness and goodness, and ignorance, falsehood and evil that peo- 



83 

pie do in the natural body. Therefore evil people in the spir- 
itual spheres take advantage of their silent, subtle influences 
to help work revenge and all the perpetrations of evil and 
machinations of hell and the Devil with which the natural 
world is inspired today. People do evil — they know not why. 

Do you not now begin to see something of the danger of 
a mind at present being unreservedly open to the influences 
and inspirations of the spiritual spheres ? The devil's best hold 
is in making people think if they have any inspirations, any 
communications from the spiritual spheres, that it can be only 
from God and from heaven; his best hold is to appear as an 
angel of light, making people believe that they are in connec- 
tion with God and heaven if they receive any message, any 
inclinations, or word of any kind from the spiritual spheres. 

And remember this : heaven and hell are conditions ; if 
either exists, the other does ; no condition can exist without its 
opposite. Heaven and hell are in humanity. 

Now dear friend, if you feel able to "try the spirits" and 
face the resistless whirlpool, the shot and shell, the shocking 
currents, the lightning freaks from all the batteries of hell, 
then buckle on the armor and get you to the task. Otherwise 
take warning and stand aloof. But be sure and ask yourself 
the question: What will I ever be good for until I am equal 
to it? 

Know this also: You may think you know considerable 
about this world by having seen with the physical eyes all the 
debaucheries and crimes, including the greatest hell-holes of 
the cities ; but if you have not, at times to say the least, been 
"telepathetical" to a considerable degree, and know what is in 
humanity, its heavens and hells, by looking into the "secret 



84 

thoughts'' of the race, then you have but small conception of 
what humanity contains. 

19. 

There is both the male and female principle in thoughts. 
Combining the thought force of some people multiplies the 
power many times. Combining the thought force of some does 
not amount to much. 

Thoughts have form; they materialize. You cannot con- 
struct a building, a machine, or anything in fact, unless you 
form it in the mind first. It is first born and constructed in 
the realm of thought, in the spirit world, from whence it is 
precipitated or born into the natural world by the laboring of 
the natural or material body in connection with the mind and 
spirit entities. Paul was not speaking blindly when he said: 
"There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body," neither 
was he ignorant of the fact that devils as well as angels have 
both, and that they perform their work through both material 
and spiritual instrumentalities. After enumerating to the Cor- 
inthians several spiritual powers he exhorted them to "covet 
earnestly the best gifts." He then said : "Yet show I unto you 
a more excellent way." Then he follows with the 13th chap- 
ter, one of the most magnificent chapters that was ever ma- 
terialized — ever given birth into the natural world. In that 
chapter he intimates the same things that Christ and John did 
concerning devils and spirits of devils going forth working 
miracles. He says that he might have all knowledge, under- 
stand all mysteries, and have faith to remove mountains, with- 
out charity he is nothing — sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. 
This lecture had to be formed in my mind, in the spiritual 
world, before it could be given its natural body, before it 



85 



could be precipitated or born into the natural world, before 
it could materialize on paper, or before it could be spoken 
naturally. 

John spoke "with the understanding" when he said: "In 
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh." 

It is simply this : The Lord Jesus Christ was God the 
Spirit (Word) materialized. 

20. 

People often go on a journey, or do something, under the 
influence of somebody's thoughts, supposing the idea to be 
original with themselves. 

I often know when somebody wishes to speak to me, and 
(I think more often than not) I know what they are going 
to talk about. If they feel free to speak I know it, if they 
feel sad or timid or have a feeling of awe, I may sense their 
feelings. 

When I know a person's thoughts and they go to talking 
the things I knew they were thinking, it is positive evidence to 
me that I did know their thoughts. 

That person whom I cannot look at and awake from sleep 
(in church, for instance) and cause to open his eyes and look 
directly at me, is a stupid non-sensitive fellow, or a very sound 
sleeper, or both. You can do it as well as 1. 

Many people have been sick when it was purely sympa- 
thetica^ the sickness being caused by the distressed thoughts 
of a friend, but not because the friend was praying for their 
sickness. 



The lady of the house where I boarded once when teach- 
ing school, knew of a case of St. Vitus' dance where the doctor 
kept going till he got tired of it and finally told them that 
the pet dog must sleep with the patient. It was given a warm 
berth in contact with the heat and body of the sick one. The 
dog gradually took the disease; the patient as gradually got 
well. The dog had to be killed; the girl went free. 

There is a striking case on record in a Massachusetts hos- 
pital : Two young men (brothers) were insane. Whatever 
move one made, or whatever things one did, the other dupli- 
cated. Somebody becoming suspicious that it was mechanical 
similitude, purely sympathetical, on the part of the younger 
boy, they were separated, taken out of each other's sight, into 
two different rooms. But it made no difference, whatever the 
elder brother did, the younger did also. I take the liberty to 
say that the spirit of the elder was upon the younger, a case 
of sympathetic thought transference. 

But if, when there existed so strange an attraction be- 
tween these two brothers, the elder had died, is it not reason- 
able to suppose that the spirit of the elder would have taken 
his abode in the younger, whereby the younger would then 
have been helplessly and permanently demented, unless some- 
body with strength and understanding sufficient should "cast 
out" "the evil spirit?" 

Christ and the Disciples used to cast out devils and evil 
spirits. And I do not know whether that elder brother was 
locally deranged by some inherent disease and by sins and 
excesses of the day the same as many are, or whether he was 
literally possessed with an evil spirit, or spirits. 



87 

You know the Bible record of the man in the mountains 
and tombs most of his time, a raving maniac ! You know the 
record of how : 

"He saw Jesus afar off and ran and worshipped him. 

"And cried with a loud voice, and said: What have I to 
do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I ad- 
jure thee by God, that thou torment me not. And Jesus asked 
him : What is thy name ? And he answered, saying : My name 
is legion; for we are many. 

"And all the devils besought him, saying: Send us into 
the swine, that we may enter into them." 

And Jesus told them to go. "And the unclean spirits 
went out and entered into the swine." 

And when the people all about who knew this maniac so 
well, saw him clothed and in his right mind, they were afraid, 
and they began to request so great and good a man as Jesus 
to "depart out of their coasts." 

Now the question is, how came that legion of unclean 
spirits in that unfortunate man "in the country of the Gada- 
renes ?" 

He had become a receptacle for certain evil spirits. 
Whether willingly or not, we are not told. But judging from 
the position he took when seeing Jesus, we know that he had 
become tired of being ruled by such spirits. Whether he was 
a willing or ignorant victim at the start and receiving what to 
his mind were insignificant spirit influences, or godly inspira- 
tional communications, and found himself deluged beyond 
control before he thought of it, we are not told. Whether 
those evil spirits (persons) united their subtle influences in 
revenge upon the Gadarene, or whether by some mutual attrac- 



88 

tion they had migrated to him, we are not told. But this much 
is certain : there were attractions of some sort of sufficient 
strength so they, when meeting with the change denominated 
death in the natural world, took their abode in the Gadarene. 
It is also certain that they had become of so low an order 
that they were ready to enter the animal kingdom, which we 
know from their request to be sent into, or permitted to go 
into, the herd of swine. 

So you see that devils pray, and that their prayers are 
answered as well as the prayers of saints. They were on the 
retrogressive side of humanity, and on reaching the depths, 
will again begin to rise, when the burden of their prayers and 
ambitions of their lives will be up instead of down ; but they 
must needs flow on in their course of circulation until they 
again get back to the lungs of both the natural and spiritual 
universe, where they are again purified. As the Bible terms 
it-: The spirit gets back to the God who gave it. 

Suppose you have made up your mind to join some society, 
the Methodist or Baptist for example. You are a little more 
favorable to the Baptist, we will say. Both are praying for 
you, their desires are reaching out after you, each wants you ; 
you are between two fires, between two psychological batteries ; 
you feel a drawing both ways. If the Baptists give up some- 
what and begin to withdraw their thoughts from you, and the 
Methodists cling-to a little while, strongly desiring you, even 
tho you are not in their company, you will cast your lot with 
the Methodists, just as sure as the sun shines, notwithstanding 
your ideas being a little more favorable to the Baptist church, 
unless you are acquainted with these truths and stubbornly go 
the other way, or by calm reasoning decide that it is best. 



89 

Jesus Christ prayed intelligently — to his Father. Where 
was the Father? In Himself: "He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father also." "I am in the Father and the Father in 
me." 



Somebody has said that "self-knowledge is the essence 
of all knowledge." Christ possessed that knowledge. When 
the woman over whom physicians, so-called, were "at sea," by 
faith (her will power) drew virtue from Christ that healed 
her, He knew it. 

W r ith every thought we think a portion of the brain de- 
materializes (dissolves) to an invisible force, substance that has 
been named SPIRIT; if it were not so it would not need a 
constant new supply for reforming (re-materializing), which 
is supplied by food.* By having "self-knowledge" Christ knew 
everybody perfectly. 



In the Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Physiology, by 
O. S. and L. N. Fowler, that statement is found: "Self-knowl- 
edge is the essence of all knowledge." The same book says 
of the reading of character : 

"Than this form of knowledge none is more inviting or 
useful. Hence God has caused the inherent character of 
every living being and thing to gush out through every organ 
of the body, and every avenue of the soul ; and also created in 
both brute and man a character reading faculty, to take intu- 
itive cognizance of the mental operations. Nor will she let 
any one lie, any more than lie herself, but compels all to carry 



*And you cannot supply it from the rum barrel, nor from drugs 
and chemicals; they destroy. 



90 

the flag of their character at their mast-heads, so that all ac- 
quainted with the signs may see and read. If we attempt de- 
ception the effort convicts us. If all nature's signs of character 
were fully understood, all could read not only the main char- 
acters of all they see, but even most thoughts and feelings 
passing in the mind for the time being — 'A gift worth more 
than Astor's millions.' " 

21. 

"All the world's a stage" — how true. The question is, 
moving on with the stream of time, how much do I see, of 
what I see, enacted in that wonderful drama? What part do 
I play — that of the bluffed and cowering ignoramus, ever 
yielding to the "civilized" tyrant's defiance of "What are you 
going to do about it?" or to their oily-tongued honey-coated 
oppressions ? or the part of the upright fearless actor upon the 
world's stage? 

*As for me, may I ever love to revel in, to study and 
unravel, and help drench the world with beneficial, sociological 
problems and be a factor among the powers that shall lift a 
struggling world out of fallacy and out of hell, out of the 
merciless mesmeric clutches of that present reigning Monarch, 
King and Tyrant whose name is DEVIL. 



The time is at handf when the world is in desperate need 
of a few great spirits to show humanity kindness by telling 
the truth, that a world of BEDLAM AND MEDLEY may 



*From a chapter on Literature in my Psychologized by Satan. 
;irom a chapter on A Few Peculiarities in my Psychologized 
by Satan — not yet published. 



91 

stop and think, perchance they may find out "Where are we 
at?" 

Give me an ounce of high order of love and you may have 
your tons of gold. Give me a moment's illumination by love 
and wisdom and you may have your years of delving in selfish 
degenerating loves. 

Everybody (let us hope) has loved somebody (for a mo- 
ment at least) without a touch of greed or sensuality, the 
mind being receptive to thoughts of righteousness, and felt 
touches of intellect and inspiration and love that sent you 
soaring through realms hitherto unexplored, acquainting you 
with such brilliancy, such beauty, such illumination, ten thou- 
sand times above anything you had ever imagined, dreamed 
or conceived. 

Would you part with the memories of those moments for 
all the material wealth of the millionaires of earth? Aye,, 
diamonds and gold; principalities and powers; thrones, king- 
doms, dominions and crowns and sensuality loved by the world 
— all these are loathsome to you when occasionally getting a 
glimpse of your better self and the GOLDEN DAY SOON 
TO DAWN UPON HUMANITY. 

You would not part with their memories, because you see 
in those short experiences of intellectuality and illumination, 
when you feel like electrifying the world with a new spirit, 
that it is possible to rise out of captivity and into a realization 
of the highest ideals ever conceived — even by the gods. 



Our position then depends upon whether we love darkness 
or light, truth or fallacy. To say that we wish for light, but 
remain despisers of truth, is to remain in darkness. We can- 



92 

not receive light unless we become sensitive to it ; then we 
can recognize and profit by "the tidal wave of deeper souls." 

This little book can only hint at the great truths that the 
world must learn before "the truth shall make you free." 

The truth is what we must have in order to help society 
to equitable adjustment, and those who are best armed with it 
(other things being equal) are best prepared to fight the bat- 
tles of life, and to assist others. Without truth and the high- 
est moral powers the more influence we have the more danger- 
ous we are. 

I have a duty to perform. That is why I have written 
this book. I have done as well as I could in this short space. 
I am content to let a wiser do better. 

"Adieu, kind friend, adieu." 



%IY 23 190* 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




